Using numpy.datetime in numba nopython functions?

Question

Is it possible to create NPDatetime objects within a @jit(nopython=True) function? From what I can tell, initializing these objects requires using string objects which seems to prevent nopython functions from compiling.

Answer 1

You can certainly do operations on numpy datetimes.

import numpy as np
import numba as nb

@nb.njit
def diff_dt(a, b):
    return a - b

x = np.datetime64('2005-02-25')
y = np.datetime64('2005-02-27')

diff_dt(x, y)

You however can't create a datetime object it appears:

@nb.njit
def create_dt(s):
    return np.datetime64(s)

# Fails
create_dt('2005-02-25')

Answer 2

I was facing a similar problem. What I did was just convert my datetimes into integer seconds since the epoch, then after the jit operation, recast them to datetimes.