How can I convert the string '2020-01-06T00:00:00.000Z' into a datetime object?

Question

As the question says, I have a series of strings like '2020-01-06T00:00:00.000Z'. How can I convert this series to datetime using Python? I prefer the method on pandas. If not is there any method to solve this task? Thank all.

string '2020-01-06T00:00:00.000Z' 
convert to 2020-01-06 00:00:00 under datetime object

Does this answer your question? [How do I parse an ISO 8601-formatted date?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/127803/how-do-i-parse-an-iso-8601-formatted-date) — FObersteiner, Dec 02 '21 at 12:41
a simple way how to handle the Z and parse to aware datetime / UTC: [replace with +00:00](https://stackoverflow.com/a/62769371/10197418). — FObersteiner, Dec 02 '21 at 12:41

accdias · Accepted Answer · 2022-01-21T13:45:30.327

12

With Python 3.7+, that can be achieved with datetime.fromisoformat() and some tweaking of the source string:

>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> datetime.fromisoformat('2020-01-06T00:00:00.000Z'[:-1] + '+00:00')
datetime.datetime(2020, 1, 6, 0, 0, tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc)
>>>

And here is a more Pythonic way to achieve the same result:

>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> from datetime import timezone
>>> datetime.fromisoformat('2020-01-06T00:00:00.000Z'[:-1]).astimezone(timezone.utc)
datetime.datetime(2020, 1, 6, 3, 0, tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc)
>>>

Finally, to format it as %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S, you can do:

>>> d = datetime.fromisoformat('2020-01-06T00:00:00.000Z'[:-1]).astimezone(timezone.utc)
>>> d.strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')
'2020-01-06 00:00:00'
>>>

edited Jan 21 '22 at 13:45

answered Jan 15 '20 at 03:06

accdias

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just stripping the `Z` can be a bad idea since that will result in a naive datetime object - which Python treats as *local time*, not UTC (which is specified by Z) – FObersteiner Dec 02 '21 at 12:40
@MrFuppes, thanks for the heads-up. I updated the answer to work around that. – accdias Jan 21 '22 at 13:19
... using what you suggested in the main comments. – accdias Jan 21 '22 at 13:28

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 15 '20 at 03:03

3

Given raw_time is column contains the string time. You can do this

pd.to_datetime(df['raw_time'])

answered Jan 15 '20 at 03:03

hunzter

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This method will create 2020-01-06 00:00:00+00:00. I would like to have the datetime under '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S', without +00:00 – ShanN Jan 15 '20 at 03:15
Then you only need to use strftime on that column. – hunzter Jan 15 '20 at 04:00

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 15 '20 at 03:31

1

If you want pandas method try this:

sample series `s`

Out[1792]:
0    2020-01-06T00:00:00.000Z
1    2020-01-06T01:00:00.000Z
dtype: object

s_time = pd.to_datetime(s).dt.tz_localize(None)

Out[1796]:
0   2020-01-06 00:00:00
1   2020-01-06 01:00:00
dtype: datetime64[ns]

answered Jan 15 '20 at 03:31

Andy L.

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note: [this might change more than you expect](https://stackoverflow.com/a/62656878/10197418). – FObersteiner Dec 02 '21 at 12:42

How can I convert the string '2020-01-06T00:00:00.000Z' into a datetime object?

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