Converting Python dataframe column to date format

Question

I have a column in a dataframe that I want to convert to a date. The values of the column are either DDMONYYY or DD Month YYYY 00:00:00.000 GMT. For example, one row in the dataframe could have the value 31DEC2002 and the next row could have 31 December 2015 00:00:00.000 GMT. I think this is why I get an error when trying to convert the column to a date using pd.to_datetime or datetime.strptime to convert.

Anyone got any ideas? I'd be very grateful for any help/pointers.

jezrael · Accepted Answer · 2019-12-06 13:50:09Z

3

For me working to_datetime with utc=True for converting all values to UTC and errors='coerce' for convert not parseable values to NaT (missing datetime):

df = pd.DataFrame({'date':['31DEC2002','31 December 2015 00:00:00.000 GMT','.']})

df['date'] = pd.to_datetime(df['date'], utc=True, errors='coerce')
print (df)
                       date
0 2002-12-31 00:00:00+00:00
1 2015-12-31 00:00:00+00:00
2                       NaT

edited Dec 6, 2019 at 13:50

answered Dec 6, 2019 at 13:43

jezrael

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1 Comment

Damask_Rose Over a year ago

Thanks, but that still gives me an error message: ValueError: ('String does not contain a date:', '.')

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