Checking if a python variable is a date? - python

One thing that I'm finding hard with the pandas/numpy combo is dealing with dates. My dataframe time series indices are often DateTimeIndexes containing Timestamps but sometimes seem to be something else (e.g. datetime.Date or numpy.datetime64).
Is there a generic way to check if a particular object is a date, i.e. any of the known date variable types? Or is that a function I should look to create myself?
Thanks!

I use this function to convert a series to a consistent datetime object in pandas / numpy. It works with both scalars and series.
import pandas as pd
x = '2018-12-11'
pd.to_datetime(x) # Timestamp('2018-12-11 00:00:00')

if isinstance(yourVariable,datetime.datetime):
print("it's a date")

I would try converting the string representation of what I suspect to be a datetime into a datetime object, using the parse function from dateutil.parser.
https://chrisalbon.com/python/basics/strings_to_datetime/

Related

How to remove the time from the datetime in Python? [duplicate]

I use pandas.to_datetime to parse the dates in my data. Pandas by default represents the dates with datetime64[ns] even though the dates are all daily only.
I wonder whether there is an elegant/clever way to convert the dates to datetime.date or datetime64[D] so that, when I write the data to CSV, the dates are not appended with 00:00:00. I know I can convert the type manually element-by-element:
[dt.to_datetime().date() for dt in df.dates]
But this is really slow since I have many rows and it sort of defeats the purpose of using pandas.to_datetime. Is there a way to convert the dtype of the entire column at once? Or alternatively, does pandas.to_datetime support a precision specification so that I can get rid of the time part while working with daily data?
Since version 0.15.0 this can now be easily done using .dt to access just the date component:
df['just_date'] = df['dates'].dt.date
The above returns a datetime.date dtype, if you want to have a datetime64 then you can just normalize the time component to midnight so it sets all the values to 00:00:00:
df['normalised_date'] = df['dates'].dt.normalize()
This keeps the dtype as datetime64, but the display shows just the date value.
pandas: .dt accessor
pandas.Series.dt
Simple Solution:
df['date_only'] = df['date_time_column'].dt.date
While I upvoted EdChum's answer, which is the most direct answer to the question the OP posed, it does not really solve the performance problem (it still relies on python datetime objects, and hence any operation on them will be not vectorized - that is, it will be slow).
A better performing alternative is to use df['dates'].dt.floor('d'). Strictly speaking, it does not "keep only date part", since it just sets the time to 00:00:00. But it does work as desired by the OP when, for instance:
printing to screen
saving to csv
using the column to groupby
... and it is much more efficient, since the operation is vectorized.
EDIT: in fact, the answer the OP's would have preferred is probably "recent versions of pandas do not write the time to csv if it is 00:00:00 for all observations".
Pandas v0.13+: Use to_csv with date_format parameter
Avoid, where possible, converting your datetime64[ns] series to an object dtype series of datetime.date objects. The latter, often constructed using pd.Series.dt.date, is stored as an array of pointers and is inefficient relative to a pure NumPy-based series.
Since your concern is format when writing to CSV, just use the date_format parameter of to_csv. For example:
df.to_csv(filename, date_format='%Y-%m-%d')
See Python's strftime directives for formatting conventions.
This is a simple way to extract the date:
import pandas as pd
d='2015-01-08 22:44:09'
date=pd.to_datetime(d).date()
print(date)
Pandas DatetimeIndex and Series have a method called normalize that does exactly what you want.
You can read more about it in this answer.
It can be used as ser.dt.normalize()
Just giving a more up to date answer in case someone sees this old post.
Adding "utc=False" when converting to datetime will remove the timezone component and keep only the date in a datetime64[ns] data type.
pd.to_datetime(df['Date'], utc=False)
You will be able to save it in excel without getting the error "ValueError: Excel does not support datetimes with timezones. Please ensure that datetimes are timezone unaware before writing to Excel."
df['Column'] = df['Column'].dt.strftime('%m/%d/%Y')
This will give you just the dates and NO TIME at your desired format. You can change format according to your need '%m/%d/%Y' It will change the data type of the column to 'object'.
If you want just the dates and DO NOT want time in YYYY-MM-DD format use :
df['Column'] = pd.to_datetime(df['Column']).dt.date
The datatype will be 'object'.
For 'datetime64' datatype, use:
df['Column'] = pd.to_datetime(df['Column']).dt.normalize()
Converting to datetime64[D]:
df.dates.values.astype('M8[D]')
Though re-assigning that to a DataFrame col will revert it back to [ns].
If you wanted actual datetime.date:
dt = pd.DatetimeIndex(df.dates)
dates = np.array([datetime.date(*date_tuple) for date_tuple in zip(dt.year, dt.month, dt.day)])
I wanted to be able to change the type for a set of columns in a data frame and then remove the time keeping the day. round(), floor(), ceil() all work
df[date_columns] = df[date_columns].apply(pd.to_datetime)
df[date_columns] = df[date_columns].apply(lambda t: t.dt.floor('d'))
On tables of >1000000 rows I've found that these are both fast, with floor just slightly faster:
df['mydate'] = df.index.floor('d')
or
df['mydate'] = df.index.normalize()
If your index has timezones and you don't want those in the result, do:
df['mydate'] = df.index.tz_localize(None).floor('d')
df.index.date is many times slower; to_datetime() is even worse. Both have the further disadvantage that the results cannot be saved to an hdf store as it does not support type datetime.date.
Note that I've used the index as the date source here; if your source is another column, you would need to add .dt, e.g. df.mycol.dt.floor('d')
This worked for me on UTC Timestamp (2020-08-19T09:12:57.945888)
for di, i in enumerate(df['YourColumnName']):
df['YourColumnName'][di] = pd.Timestamp(i)
If the column is not already in datetime format:
df['DTformat'] = pd.to_datetime(df['col'])
Once it's in datetime format you can convert the entire column to date only like this:
df['DateOnly'] = df['DTformat'].apply(lambda x: x.date())

Converting numpy64 objects to Pandas datetime

Question is pretty self-explanatory. I am finding that pd.to_datetime isn't changing anything about the object type and using pd.Timestampe()directly is bombing out.
Before this is marked a duplicate of Converting between datetime, Timestamp and datetime64, I am struggling at changing an entire column of a dataframe not just one datetime object. Perhaps that was in the article but I didn't see it in the top answer.
I will add that my error is occurring when I try to get unique values from the dataframes column. Is using unique converting the dtype to something unwanted?
The method you mentioned pandas.to_datetime() will work on scalars, Series and whole DataFrame if you need, so:
dataFrame['column_date_converted'] = pd.to_datetime(dataFrame['column_to_convert'])

Pandas: convert column to datetime format [duplicate]

I use pandas.to_datetime to parse the dates in my data. Pandas by default represents the dates with datetime64[ns] even though the dates are all daily only.
I wonder whether there is an elegant/clever way to convert the dates to datetime.date or datetime64[D] so that, when I write the data to CSV, the dates are not appended with 00:00:00. I know I can convert the type manually element-by-element:
[dt.to_datetime().date() for dt in df.dates]
But this is really slow since I have many rows and it sort of defeats the purpose of using pandas.to_datetime. Is there a way to convert the dtype of the entire column at once? Or alternatively, does pandas.to_datetime support a precision specification so that I can get rid of the time part while working with daily data?
Since version 0.15.0 this can now be easily done using .dt to access just the date component:
df['just_date'] = df['dates'].dt.date
The above returns a datetime.date dtype, if you want to have a datetime64 then you can just normalize the time component to midnight so it sets all the values to 00:00:00:
df['normalised_date'] = df['dates'].dt.normalize()
This keeps the dtype as datetime64, but the display shows just the date value.
pandas: .dt accessor
pandas.Series.dt
Simple Solution:
df['date_only'] = df['date_time_column'].dt.date
While I upvoted EdChum's answer, which is the most direct answer to the question the OP posed, it does not really solve the performance problem (it still relies on python datetime objects, and hence any operation on them will be not vectorized - that is, it will be slow).
A better performing alternative is to use df['dates'].dt.floor('d'). Strictly speaking, it does not "keep only date part", since it just sets the time to 00:00:00. But it does work as desired by the OP when, for instance:
printing to screen
saving to csv
using the column to groupby
... and it is much more efficient, since the operation is vectorized.
EDIT: in fact, the answer the OP's would have preferred is probably "recent versions of pandas do not write the time to csv if it is 00:00:00 for all observations".
Pandas v0.13+: Use to_csv with date_format parameter
Avoid, where possible, converting your datetime64[ns] series to an object dtype series of datetime.date objects. The latter, often constructed using pd.Series.dt.date, is stored as an array of pointers and is inefficient relative to a pure NumPy-based series.
Since your concern is format when writing to CSV, just use the date_format parameter of to_csv. For example:
df.to_csv(filename, date_format='%Y-%m-%d')
See Python's strftime directives for formatting conventions.
This is a simple way to extract the date:
import pandas as pd
d='2015-01-08 22:44:09'
date=pd.to_datetime(d).date()
print(date)
Pandas DatetimeIndex and Series have a method called normalize that does exactly what you want.
You can read more about it in this answer.
It can be used as ser.dt.normalize()
Just giving a more up to date answer in case someone sees this old post.
Adding "utc=False" when converting to datetime will remove the timezone component and keep only the date in a datetime64[ns] data type.
pd.to_datetime(df['Date'], utc=False)
You will be able to save it in excel without getting the error "ValueError: Excel does not support datetimes with timezones. Please ensure that datetimes are timezone unaware before writing to Excel."
df['Column'] = df['Column'].dt.strftime('%m/%d/%Y')
This will give you just the dates and NO TIME at your desired format. You can change format according to your need '%m/%d/%Y' It will change the data type of the column to 'object'.
If you want just the dates and DO NOT want time in YYYY-MM-DD format use :
df['Column'] = pd.to_datetime(df['Column']).dt.date
The datatype will be 'object'.
For 'datetime64' datatype, use:
df['Column'] = pd.to_datetime(df['Column']).dt.normalize()
Converting to datetime64[D]:
df.dates.values.astype('M8[D]')
Though re-assigning that to a DataFrame col will revert it back to [ns].
If you wanted actual datetime.date:
dt = pd.DatetimeIndex(df.dates)
dates = np.array([datetime.date(*date_tuple) for date_tuple in zip(dt.year, dt.month, dt.day)])
I wanted to be able to change the type for a set of columns in a data frame and then remove the time keeping the day. round(), floor(), ceil() all work
df[date_columns] = df[date_columns].apply(pd.to_datetime)
df[date_columns] = df[date_columns].apply(lambda t: t.dt.floor('d'))
On tables of >1000000 rows I've found that these are both fast, with floor just slightly faster:
df['mydate'] = df.index.floor('d')
or
df['mydate'] = df.index.normalize()
If your index has timezones and you don't want those in the result, do:
df['mydate'] = df.index.tz_localize(None).floor('d')
df.index.date is many times slower; to_datetime() is even worse. Both have the further disadvantage that the results cannot be saved to an hdf store as it does not support type datetime.date.
Note that I've used the index as the date source here; if your source is another column, you would need to add .dt, e.g. df.mycol.dt.floor('d')
This worked for me on UTC Timestamp (2020-08-19T09:12:57.945888)
for di, i in enumerate(df['YourColumnName']):
df['YourColumnName'][di] = pd.Timestamp(i)
If the column is not already in datetime format:
df['DTformat'] = pd.to_datetime(df['col'])
Once it's in datetime format you can convert the entire column to date only like this:
df['DateOnly'] = df['DTformat'].apply(lambda x: x.date())

Convert existing datetime array to date

I have a column of dates. I want to calculate the number of days between each datetime in the array and a specified date.
import datetime
print(mydates[0])
2013-04-30T20:00:00.000000000-0400
print(mydates[0] - datetime.date(2013,9,20))
TypeError: ufunc subtract cannot use operands with types dtype('<M8[ns]') and dtype('O')
I need to create an array with the number of days between those dates but, more generally, I will also need to know how to convert an array of datetimes into dates.
I found another post that converted datetime.datetime.now() into a date but I don't know how the syntax would work to use that on a an existing set of date times.
Here is the link
Whatever numpy type you're using (presumably np.datetime64) and the types in the datetime module aren't implicitly convertible.
But they are explicitly convertible, which means all you need to do is explicitly convert:
>>> mydates[0] - np.datetime64(datetime.date(2013,9,20))
numpy.timedelta64(-1,'D')
>>> mydates - np.datetime64(datetime.date(2013,9,20))
array([-1, 0, -152], dtype='timedelta64['D'])
(Note that the 'D' there is because I'm using datetime values with day units; from your output, it looks like you're using nanosecond units. But the same applies generally.)
If you actually want to convert the array into an array of datetime.date objects, you can… but that's probably a bad idea. When you're using native numpy types, your arrays are compact and fast; when you're storing general Python types, arrays are no better than normal Python lists, and it's more misleading than helpful to pretend otherwise.
If you explained what you were actually trying to do, someone could probably explain a better way to do it than converting to an array of date objects.

Keep only date part when using pandas.to_datetime

I use pandas.to_datetime to parse the dates in my data. Pandas by default represents the dates with datetime64[ns] even though the dates are all daily only.
I wonder whether there is an elegant/clever way to convert the dates to datetime.date or datetime64[D] so that, when I write the data to CSV, the dates are not appended with 00:00:00. I know I can convert the type manually element-by-element:
[dt.to_datetime().date() for dt in df.dates]
But this is really slow since I have many rows and it sort of defeats the purpose of using pandas.to_datetime. Is there a way to convert the dtype of the entire column at once? Or alternatively, does pandas.to_datetime support a precision specification so that I can get rid of the time part while working with daily data?
Since version 0.15.0 this can now be easily done using .dt to access just the date component:
df['just_date'] = df['dates'].dt.date
The above returns a datetime.date dtype, if you want to have a datetime64 then you can just normalize the time component to midnight so it sets all the values to 00:00:00:
df['normalised_date'] = df['dates'].dt.normalize()
This keeps the dtype as datetime64, but the display shows just the date value.
pandas: .dt accessor
pandas.Series.dt
Simple Solution:
df['date_only'] = df['date_time_column'].dt.date
While I upvoted EdChum's answer, which is the most direct answer to the question the OP posed, it does not really solve the performance problem (it still relies on python datetime objects, and hence any operation on them will be not vectorized - that is, it will be slow).
A better performing alternative is to use df['dates'].dt.floor('d'). Strictly speaking, it does not "keep only date part", since it just sets the time to 00:00:00. But it does work as desired by the OP when, for instance:
printing to screen
saving to csv
using the column to groupby
... and it is much more efficient, since the operation is vectorized.
EDIT: in fact, the answer the OP's would have preferred is probably "recent versions of pandas do not write the time to csv if it is 00:00:00 for all observations".
Pandas v0.13+: Use to_csv with date_format parameter
Avoid, where possible, converting your datetime64[ns] series to an object dtype series of datetime.date objects. The latter, often constructed using pd.Series.dt.date, is stored as an array of pointers and is inefficient relative to a pure NumPy-based series.
Since your concern is format when writing to CSV, just use the date_format parameter of to_csv. For example:
df.to_csv(filename, date_format='%Y-%m-%d')
See Python's strftime directives for formatting conventions.
This is a simple way to extract the date:
import pandas as pd
d='2015-01-08 22:44:09'
date=pd.to_datetime(d).date()
print(date)
Pandas DatetimeIndex and Series have a method called normalize that does exactly what you want.
You can read more about it in this answer.
It can be used as ser.dt.normalize()
Just giving a more up to date answer in case someone sees this old post.
Adding "utc=False" when converting to datetime will remove the timezone component and keep only the date in a datetime64[ns] data type.
pd.to_datetime(df['Date'], utc=False)
You will be able to save it in excel without getting the error "ValueError: Excel does not support datetimes with timezones. Please ensure that datetimes are timezone unaware before writing to Excel."
df['Column'] = df['Column'].dt.strftime('%m/%d/%Y')
This will give you just the dates and NO TIME at your desired format. You can change format according to your need '%m/%d/%Y' It will change the data type of the column to 'object'.
If you want just the dates and DO NOT want time in YYYY-MM-DD format use :
df['Column'] = pd.to_datetime(df['Column']).dt.date
The datatype will be 'object'.
For 'datetime64' datatype, use:
df['Column'] = pd.to_datetime(df['Column']).dt.normalize()
Converting to datetime64[D]:
df.dates.values.astype('M8[D]')
Though re-assigning that to a DataFrame col will revert it back to [ns].
If you wanted actual datetime.date:
dt = pd.DatetimeIndex(df.dates)
dates = np.array([datetime.date(*date_tuple) for date_tuple in zip(dt.year, dt.month, dt.day)])
I wanted to be able to change the type for a set of columns in a data frame and then remove the time keeping the day. round(), floor(), ceil() all work
df[date_columns] = df[date_columns].apply(pd.to_datetime)
df[date_columns] = df[date_columns].apply(lambda t: t.dt.floor('d'))
On tables of >1000000 rows I've found that these are both fast, with floor just slightly faster:
df['mydate'] = df.index.floor('d')
or
df['mydate'] = df.index.normalize()
If your index has timezones and you don't want those in the result, do:
df['mydate'] = df.index.tz_localize(None).floor('d')
df.index.date is many times slower; to_datetime() is even worse. Both have the further disadvantage that the results cannot be saved to an hdf store as it does not support type datetime.date.
Note that I've used the index as the date source here; if your source is another column, you would need to add .dt, e.g. df.mycol.dt.floor('d')
This worked for me on UTC Timestamp (2020-08-19T09:12:57.945888)
for di, i in enumerate(df['YourColumnName']):
df['YourColumnName'][di] = pd.Timestamp(i)
If the column is not already in datetime format:
df['DTformat'] = pd.to_datetime(df['col'])
Once it's in datetime format you can convert the entire column to date only like this:
df['DateOnly'] = df['DTformat'].apply(lambda x: x.date())

Categories

Resources