How to convert string data with variable format to datetime?

Question

I have a Pandas dataframe that has a column of time in string format as below:

 id       playTime

 12       1d 13h 23m
 13      42d 22h 47m
 14       7d 16h 31m
 15        1h 26m 6s 
 16           9d 58m

I tried pd.to_datetime(df['playTime'], format='%j%H%M%S') but it shows time data does not match format '%j%H%M%S' (match). In the end, I'd like to convert thedf['playTime']values to seconds.

Your question doesn't make sense, what you have is a collection of time durations, there is nothing here to indicate a date. For instance what should the first row represent? — EdChum
– EdChum, Commented Sep 25, 2017 at 12:32

jezrael · Accepted Answer · 2017-09-25 12:32:41Z

1

I think need to_timedelta for Timedeltas with total_seconds:

df['playTime'] = pd.to_timedelta(df['playTime']).dt.total_seconds().astype(int)
print (df)
   id  playTime
0  12    134580
1  13   3710820
2  14    664260
3  15      5166
4  16    781080

answered Sep 25, 2017 at 12:32

jezrael

868k103 gold badges1.4k silver badges1.3k bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Comments

Jonathan DEKHTIAR · Accepted Answer · 2017-09-25 12:29:54Z

0

Can you try this:

pd.to_datetime(df['playTime'], format='%j %H %M %S')

answered Sep 25, 2017 at 12:29

Jonathan DEKHTIAR

3,5561 gold badge24 silver badges47 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

How to convert string data with variable format to datetime?

2 Answers 2

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related