Converting object to datetime format in python

Question

Below is the first row of my csv DateTime column:

Mon Nov 02 20:37:10 GMT+00:00 2015

The DateTime column is currently an object and I want to convert it to datetime format so that I can get the date to appear as 2015-11-02 and I will create a separate column for the time.

The code I am using to convert the column to date time format is:

for item, frame in df['DateTime'].iteritems():
     datetime.datetime.strptime(df['DateTime'], "%a-%b-%d-%H-%M-%S-%Z-%Y")

I am getting this error:

> TypeError: must be str, not Series

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

@bernie: that yields AttributeError: 'Series' object has no attribute 'to_datetime', — Alicia Garcia-Raboso
– Alicia Garcia-Raboso, Commented Jul 12, 2016 at 16:11

Alicia Garcia-Raboso · Accepted Answer · 2016-07-12 16:08:38Z

69

Use pd.to_datetime():

df['DateTime'] = pd.to_datetime(df['DateTime'])

For example,

pd.to_datetime('Mon Nov 02 20:37:10 GMT+00:00 2015')

produces Timestamp('2015-11-02 20:37:10').

answered Jul 12, 2016 at 16:08

Alicia Garcia-Raboso

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1 Comment

IceQueeny Over a year ago

Any idea what to do where there is a huge list, and one time is nan? Should i first try to find and edit/change that one value to something or is there a nice trick?

Babulal · Accepted Answer · 2022-09-08 09:26:01Z

0

Another solution is to pass errors parameter as per below and its application

df['DateTime'] = pd.to_datetime(df['DateTime'], errors='coerce')

errors{‘ignore’, ‘raise’, ‘coerce’}, default ‘raise’

If ‘raise’, then invalid parsing will raise an exception.
If ‘coerce’, then invalid parsing will be set as NaN.
If ‘ignore’, then invalid parsing will return the input.

answered Sep 8, 2022 at 9:26

Babulal

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SNT · Accepted Answer · 2024-01-19 21:41:55Z

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I would like to further add to 'Alicia Garcia-Raboso', that after conversion we may need to extract Year, Month . We can do this by df ['DateTime'] = df['DateTime'].dt.year, and so on. This is especially useful when dealing with dataframes.

answered Jan 19, 2024 at 21:41

SNT

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Koedlt Over a year ago

This does not provide an answer to the question. Once you have sufficient reputation you will be able to comment on any post; instead, provide answers that don't require clarification from the asker. - From Review

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