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How to automatically read dates from a CSV file with Python Pandas?

Sometimes, we want to automatically read dates from a CSV file with Python Pandas.

In this article, we’ll look at how to automatically read dates from a CSV file with Python Pandas.

How to automatically read dates from a CSV file with Python Pandas?

To automatically read dates from a CSV file with Python Pandas, we can set the date_parser argument.

For instance, we write

from datetime import datetime
dateparse = lambda x: datetime.strptime(x, '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')

df = pd.read_csv(infile, parse_dates=['datetime'], date_parser=dateparse)

to call read_csv with the file to read.

And we set parse_dates to 'datetime' to parse dates with datetime.

Then we specify the date_parser argument by setting it to the dateparse functuon we created to parse the dates with the given format.

Conclusion

To automatically read dates from a CSV file with Python Pandas, we can set the date_parser argument.

Posted in Python, Python Answers