Convert datetime.datetime object to days since epoch in Python

python pandas datetime date-formatting epoch
brittenb picture brittenb · Jul 28, 2015 · Viewed 22.2k times · Source

I've got a pandas.Series object that might look like this:

import pandas as pd
myVar = pd.Series(["VLADIVOSTOK 690090", "MAHE", NaN, NaN, "VLADIVOSTOK 690090", "2000-07-01 00:00:00"])

myVar[5] is parsed as a datetime.datetime object when the data is read into Python via pandas. I'm assuming that converting this value to the number of days since epoch (36708) isn't difficult at all. I'm just new to Python and don't know how to do it. Thanks in advance!

Answer

TigerhawkT3 picture TigerhawkT3 · Jul 28, 2015

I'm not sure where you're getting 36,708 days since the epoch (it's only been 16,644 days since January 1, 1970), but datetime.timedelta objects (used in date arithmetic) have a days attribute:

>>> import datetime
>>> (datetime.datetime.utcnow() - datetime.datetime(1970,1,1)).days
16644

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