.to_datetime()
board05706631851 total contribution
Published Apr 20, 2023
Contribute to Docs
The .to_datetime() function returns a pandas datetime object for a given object, often an array or dictionary-like type such as a Series or DataFrame.
Syntax
This function returns a value in datetime format. Various input arguments can be used as described below.
pandas.to_datetime(arg, format=None, errors='raise', dayfirst=False, yearfirst=False, utc=None, box=True, infer_datetime_format=False, origin='unix', cache=True)
| Parameter Name | Data Type | Usage |
|---|---|---|
arg |
int, float, str, datetime, list, tuple, 1-d array, Series, DateFrame/dict-like | Converts given data into a datetime |
errors |
‘ignore’, ‘raise’, ‘coerce’ | The given keyword determines the handling of errors |
dayfirst |
bool (default False) |
Specifies that the str or list-like object begins with a day |
yearfirst |
bool (default True) |
Specifies that the str or list-like object begins with a year |
utc |
bool (default None) |
When True, output is converted to UTC time zone |
format |
str (default None) |
Pass a strftime to specify the format of the datetime conversion |
exact |
bool (default True) |
Determines how the format parameter is applied |
unit |
str (default ‘ns’) | Specifies the units of the passed object |
infer_datetime_format |
bool (default False) |
When True, and no format has been passed, the datetime string will be based on the first non-NaN element within the object |
origin |
scalar (default unix) | Sets the reference date |
cache |
bool (default True) |
Allows the use of a unique set of converted dates to apply the conversion (only applied when object contains at least 50 values) |
Example
The code below demonstrates the conversion of a string to a datetime object with the .to_datetime() function.
import pandas as pdmy_list = ['11/09/30']xyz = pd.to_datetime(my_list, dayfirst=True)print(xyz)
This example results in the following output::
DatetimeIndex(['2030-11-09'], dtype='datetime64[ns]', freq=None)
Looking to contribute?
- Learn more about how to get involved.
- Edit this page on GitHub to fix an error or make an improvement.
- Submit feedback to let us know how we can improve Docs.
