How to access pandas DataFrame datetime index using strings

Question

This is a very simple and practical question. I have the feeling that it must be a silly detail and that there should be similar questions. I wasn\'t able to find them tho.

Answer 1

pandas is taking what's inside the [] and deciding what it should do. If it's a subset of column names, it'll return a DataFrame with those columns. If it's a range of index values, it'll return a subset of those rows. What is does not handle is taking a single index value.

Solution

Two work around's

1.Turn the argument into something pandas interprets as a range.

df['2008-01-01':'2008-01-01']

2.Use the method designed to give you this result. loc[]

df.loc['2008-01-01']

Link to the documentation