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The process of converting a datetime to a date in Pandas involves using the .date() method. This method extracts only the date portion of the datetime object and returns it in a date format. This conversion is useful for performing various operations and analysis on a specific date rather than a specific time. The resulting date object can then be easily manipulated and manipulated using various Pandas methods and functions.
Convert Datetime to Date in Pandas
Often you may want to convert a datetime to a date in pandas. Fortunately this is easy to do using the .dt.date function, which takes on the following syntax:
df['date_column'] = pd.to_datetime(df['datetime_column']).dt.date
Example: Datetime to Date in Pandas
For example, suppose we have the following pandas DataFrame:
import pandas as pd #create pandas DataFrame with two columns df = pd.DataFrame({'sales': [4, 11], 'time': ['2020-01-15 20:02:58', '2020-01-18 14:43:24']}) #view DataFrame print(df) sales time 0 4 2020-01-15 20:02:58 1 11 2020-01-18 14:43:24
To convert the ‘time’ column to just a date, we can use the following syntax:
#convert datetime column to just date df['time'] = pd.to_datetime(df['time']).dt.date#view DataFrame print(df) sales time 0 4 2020-01-15 1 11 2020-01-18
Now the ‘time’ column just displays the date without the time.
Using Normalize() for datetime64 Dtypes
You should note that the code above will return an object dtype:
#find dtype of each column in DataFrame df.dtypes sales int64 time object dtype: object
If you instead want datetime64 then you can normalize() the time component, which will keep the dtype as datetime64 but it will only display the date:
#convert datetime column to just date df['time'] = pd.to_datetime(df['time']).dt.normalize()#view DataFrame print(df) sales time 0 4 2020-01-15 1 11 2020-01-18 #find dtype of each column in DataFrame df.dtypes sales int64 time datetime64[ns] dtype: object
Once again only the date is displayed, but the ‘time’ column is a datetime64 dtype.
Additional Resources
How to Convert Columns to DateTime in Pandas
How to Convert Strings to Float in Pandas