Convert Pandas Column to DateTime

Question

I have one field in a pandas DataFrame that was imported as string format. It should be a datetime variable. How do I convert it to a datetime column and then filter based on date.

Example:

• DataFrame Name: raw_data
• Column Name: Mycol
• Value Format in Column: '05SEP2014:00:00:00.000'

Answer 1

Use the to_datetime function, specifying a format to match your data.

raw_data['Mycol'] =  pd.to_datetime(raw_data['Mycol'], format='%d%b%Y:%H:%M:%S.%f') 

Answer 2

If you have more than one column to be converted you can do the following:

df[["col1", "col2", "col3"]] = df[["col1", "col2", "col3"]].apply(pd.to_datetime)