How do I convert a numpy.datetime64 object to a datetime.datetime (or Timestamp)?
In the following code, I create a datetime, timestamp and datetime64 objects.
import datetime
import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
dt = datetime.datetime(2012, 5, 1)
# A strange way to extract a Timestamp object, there's surely a better way?
ts = pd.DatetimeIndex([dt])[0]
dt64 = np.datetime64(dt)
In [7]: dt
Out[7]: datetime.datetime(2012, 5, 1, 0, 0)
In [8]: ts
Out[8]: <Timestamp: 2012-05-01 00:00:00>
In [9]: dt64
Out[9]: numpy.datetime64('2012-05-01T01:00:00.000000+0100')
Note: it's easy to get the datetime from the Timestamp:
In [10]: ts.to_datetime()
Out[10]: datetime.datetime(2012, 5, 1, 0, 0)
But how do we extract the datetime or Timestamp from a numpy.datetime64 (dt64)?
.
Update: a somewhat nasty example in my dataset (perhaps the motivating example) seems to be:
dt64 = numpy.datetime64('2002-06-28T01:00:00.000000000+0100')
which should be datetime.datetime(2002, 6, 28, 1, 0), and not a long (!) (1025222400000000000L)...
14 Answers
You can just use the pd.Timestamp constructor. The following diagram may be useful for this and related questions.
Welcome to hell.
You can just pass a datetime64 object to pandas.Timestamp:
In [16]: Timestamp(numpy.datetime64('2012-05-01T01:00:00.000000'))
Out[16]: <Timestamp: 2012-05-01 01:00:00>
I noticed that this doesn't work right though in NumPy 1.6.1:
numpy.datetime64('2012-05-01T01:00:00.000000+0100')
Also, pandas.to_datetime can be used (this is off of the dev version, haven't checked v0.9.1):
In [24]: pandas.to_datetime('2012-05-01T01:00:00.000000+0100')
Out[24]: datetime.datetime(2012, 5, 1, 1, 0, tzinfo=tzoffset(None, 3600))
To convert numpy.datetime64 to datetime object that represents time in UTC on numpy-1.8:
>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> import numpy as np
>>> dt = datetime.utcnow()
>>> dt
datetime.datetime(2012, 12, 4, 19, 51, 25, 362455)
>>> dt64 = np.datetime64(dt)
>>> ts = (dt64 - np.datetime64('1970-01-01T00:00:00Z')) / np.timedelta64(1, 's')
>>> ts
1354650685.3624549
>>> datetime.utcfromtimestamp(ts)
datetime.datetime(2012, 12, 4, 19, 51, 25, 362455)
>>> np.__version__
'1.8.0.dev-7b75899'
The above example assumes that a naive datetime object is interpreted by np.datetime64 as time in UTC.
To convert datetime to np.datetime64 and back (numpy-1.6):
>>> np.datetime64(datetime.utcnow()).astype(datetime)
datetime.datetime(2012, 12, 4, 13, 34, 52, 827542)
It works both on a single np.datetime64 object and a numpy array of np.datetime64.
Think of np.datetime64 the same way you would about np.int8, np.int16, etc and apply the same methods to convert between Python objects such as int, datetime and corresponding numpy objects.
Your "nasty example" works correctly:
>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> import numpy
>>> numpy.datetime64('2002-06-28T01:00:00.000000000+0100').astype(datetime)
datetime.datetime(2002, 6, 28, 0, 0)
>>> numpy.__version__
'1.6.2' # current version available via pip install numpy
I can reproduce the long value on numpy-1.8.0 installed as:
pip install git+
The same example:
>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> import numpy
>>> numpy.datetime64('2002-06-28T01:00:00.000000000+0100').astype(datetime)
1025222400000000000L
>>> numpy.__version__
'1.8.0.dev-7b75899'
It returns long because for numpy.datetime64 type .astype(datetime) is equivalent to .astype(object) that returns Python integer (long) on numpy-1.8.
To get datetime object you could:
>>> dt64.dtype
dtype('<M8[ns]')
>>> ns = 1e-9 # number of seconds in a nanosecond
>>> datetime.utcfromtimestamp(dt64.astype(int) * ns)
datetime.datetime(2002, 6, 28, 0, 0)
To get datetime64 that uses seconds directly:
>>> dt64 = numpy.datetime64('2002-06-28T01:00:00.000000000+0100', 's')
>>> dt64.dtype
dtype('<M8[s]')
>>> datetime.utcfromtimestamp(dt64.astype(int))
datetime.datetime(2002, 6, 28, 0, 0)
The numpy docs say that the datetime API is experimental and may change in future numpy versions.
I think there could be a more consolidated effort in an answer to better explain the relationship between Python's datetime module, numpy's datetime64/timedelta64 and pandas' Timestamp/Timedelta objects.
The datetime standard library of Python
The datetime standard library has four main objects
- time - only time, measured in hours, minutes, seconds and microseconds
- date - only year, month and day
- datetime - All components of time and date
- timedelta - An amount of time with maximum unit of days
Create these four objects
>>> import datetime
>>> datetime.time(hour=4, minute=3, second=10, microsecond=7199)
datetime.time(4, 3, 10, 7199)
>>> datetime.date(year=2017, month=10, day=24)
datetime.date(2017, 10, 24)
>>> datetime.datetime(year=2017, month=10, day=24, hour=4, minute=3, second=10, microsecond=7199)
datetime.datetime(2017, 10, 24, 4, 3, 10, 7199)
>>> datetime.timedelta(days=3, minutes = 55)
datetime.timedelta(3, 3300)
>>> # add timedelta to datetime
>>> datetime.timedelta(days=3, minutes = 55) + \
datetime.datetime(year=2017, month=10, day=24, hour=4, minute=3, second=10, microsecond=7199)
datetime.datetime(2017, 10, 27, 4, 58, 10, 7199)
