Convert numpy.datetime64 to string object in python
I am having trouble converting a python datetime64
object into a string. For example:
t = numpy.datetime64('2012-06-30T20:00:00.000000000-0400')
Into:
'2012.07.01' as a string. (note time difference)
I have already tried to convert the datetime64
object to a datetime
long then to a string, but I seem to get this error:
dt = t.astype(datetime.datetime) #1341100800000000000L
time.ctime(dt)
ValueError: unconvertible time
Solution 1:
Solution was:
import pandas as pd
ts = pd.to_datetime(str(date))
d = ts.strftime('%Y.%m.%d')
Solution 2:
If you don't want to do that conversion gobbledygook and are ok with just one date format, this was the best solution for me
str(t)[:10]
Out[11]: '2012-07-01'
As noted this works for pandas too
df['d'].astype(str).str[:10]
df['d'].dt.strftime('%Y-%m-%d') # equivalent
Solution 3:
You can use Numpy's datetime_as_string
function. The unit='D'
argument specifies the precision, in this case days.
>>> t = numpy.datetime64('2012-06-30T20:00:00.000000000-0400')
>>> numpy.datetime_as_string(t, unit='D')
'2012-07-01'
Solution 4:
There is a route without using pandas; but see caveat below.
Well, the t
variable has a resolution of nanoseconds, which can be shown by inspection in python:
>>> numpy.dtype(t)
dtype('<M8[ns]')
This means that the integral value of this value is 10^9 times the UNIX timestamp. The value printed in your question gives that hint. Your best bet is to divide the integral value of t
by 1 billion then you can use time.strftime
:
>>> import time
>>> time.strftime("%Y.%m.%d", time.gmtime(t.astype(int)/1000000000))
2012.07.01
In using this, be conscious of two assumptions:
1) the datetime64 resolution is nanosecond
2) the time stored in datetime64 is in UTC
Side note 1: Interestingly, the numpy developers decided [1] that datetime64
object that has a resolution greater than microsecond will be cast to a long
type, which explains why t.astype(datetime.datetime)
yields 1341100800000000000L
. The reason is that datetime.datetime
object can't accurately represent a nanosecond or finer timescale, because the resolution supported by datetime.datetime
is only microsecond.
Side note 2: Beware the different conventions between numpy 1.10 and earlier vs 1.11 and later:
in numpy <= 1.10, datetime64 is stored internally as UTC, and printed as local time. Parsing is assuming local time if no TZ is specified, otherwise the timezone offset is accounted for.
in numpy >= 1.11, datetime64 is stored internally as timezone-agnostic value (seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00 in unspecified timezone), and printed as such. Time parsing does not assume the timezone, although
+NNNN
style timezone shift is still permitted and that the value is converted to UTC.
[1]: https://github.com/numpy/numpy/blob/master/numpy/core/src/multiarray/datetime.c see routine convert_datetime_to_pyobject
.
Solution 5:
I wanted an ISO 8601 formatted string without needing any extra dependencies. My numpy_array has a single element as a datetime64. With help from @Wirawan-Purwanto, I added just a bit:
from datetime import datetime
ts = numpy_array.values.astype(datetime)/1000000000
return datetime.utcfromtimestamp(ts).isoformat() # "2018-05-24T19:54:48"