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pythonnumpydatetime64
funkymickey
funkymickey

Reputation: 111

How to Convert a List to numpy.datetime64 format

I know that we can create a single string to np.datetime64 format such as:

a = np.datetime64('2020-01-01')

But what if we have a list with multiple strings of dates in it?

How are we able to apply the same np.datetime64 to convert all the elements inside into a datetime format? Apart from doing a for-loop perhaps.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 4085

Answers (2)

Valdi_Bo
Valdi_Bo

Reputation: 31011

When you have your string list, use it as a source to a Numpy array, passing datetime64 as dtype. E.g.:

lst = ['2020-01-01', '2020-02-05', '2020-03-07' ]
a = np.array(lst, dtype='datetime64')

When you execute a (actually print this array in a notebook), you will get:

array(['2020-01-01', '2020-02-05', '2020-03-07'], dtype='datetime64[D]')

As you can see, in this case the default precision is Day. But you can pass the precision explicitely, e.g. b = np.array(lst, dtype='datetime64[s]').

Don't be misled by apostrophes surrounding each element in the above printout, they are not strings. To check it, execute a[0] and you will get:

numpy.datetime64('2020-01-01')

Upvotes: 2

kwra
kwra

Reputation: 16

Using list comprehension:

strings_list= [...]
npdate_list = [np.datetime64(x) for x in strings_list]

Is there a specific reason for you to want to avoid a loop?

List comprehension is okay?

Upvotes: 0

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