how to specify the datetime format in read_csv

Question

I have a file where each row has this format:

YYYY-MM-DD-HH-MM-SS  uint64 float64 float64 uint64

I\'ve read it with:

pd.rea         


        

Answer 1

You can pass a function that parses the correct format to the date_parser kwarg of read_csv, but another option is to not parse the dates when reading, but afterwards with to_datetime (this functions allows to specify a format, and will be faster than a custom date_parser function):

df = pd.read_csv('file.txt', sep=' ', header=None, index_col=0, names= ('C1', 'C2', 'C3', 'C4'), use_unsigned=True)
df.index = pd.to_datetime(df.index, format="%Y-%m-%d-%H-%M-%S")

Answer 2

I have found this method.

f = lambda s: datetime.datetime.strptime(s,'%Y-%m-%d-%H-%M-%S')
pd.read_csv('file.txt', sep=' ', header=None, index_col=0, names= ('C1', 'C2', 'C3', 'C4'), use_unsigned=True, date_parser=f)

that worked