Tell python which is days and which is months

Question

I have a data frame with a lot of timedata looking like this:

01-08-2018 14:02:03

I have converted it to datetime using this code:

df["Date"]=pd.to_datetime((df["Date"]))

and it gives me this: 2018-01-08 14:02:03

At first glance it looks fine, but it has mistaken days for months. So my question is how do i tell python that days is days and month is months?

I hope some of you can help me

Possible duplicate of [How to change the datetime format in pandas](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/38067704/how-to-change-the-datetime-format-in-pandas) — FlyingTeller, Aug 30 '18 at 12:39

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 30 '18 at 12:41

1

Use dayfirst=True

Ex:

import pandas as pd
print(pd.to_datetime("01-08-2018 14:02:03", dayfirst=True))

Output:

2018-08-01 14:02:03

answered Aug 30 '18 at 12:41

Rakesh

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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 31 '18 at 11:42

0

Use this:

import pandas as pd

df["Date"]=pd.to_datetime(df["Date"], format='%d-%m-%Y %H:%M:%S')#you will specify in the format key what each number means so it doesn't misunderstands it

answered Aug 31 '18 at 11:42

Ines

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1
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Tell python which is days and which is months

2 Answers2