How to change date time formats python

Question

I have huge data of time series and I am facing problem in changing the time conventions.

Below are different types and I am trying to make them all to one format. Not able to find any guidance accordingly. It is more like a data pre processing/ cleaning process that I am trying to do. So that the next execution process with python and pandas goes smooth. Changing manually is practically impossible need a fix with python script.

The input files are of two types in CSV format.

A three column and multiple rows where col[0] is date-time definitely and rest are other data. Column header is not constant every input file is given some name so cannot use headers.

09/30/2015 12:00 PM,abcsd,434235
09/30/2015 12:30 PM,taer,45824
09/30/2015 13:00 PM,hshfe,4894

The input file with multiple columns and multiple rows

no.,30-09-2015 12:00 PM,30-09-2015 13:00 PM
1111,2345,2342

Types

1. 09/30/2015 12:00:00 
2. 30/09/2015 12:00
3. 09/30/2015 12:00 PM
4. 30/09/2015 12:00 PM
5. 30-09-2015 12:00:00
6. 30-09-2015 12:00 PM

The above listed are the types and I want to bring them all to one format as:

1. 30/09/2015 12:00

or 

2. 09/30/2015 12:00

I could not find proper guidance in document too. So could not try out any code so far.

Thanks for the valuable suggestions

dd-mm vs mm-dd will be ambiguous if the day is less than 13. How do you expect to handle that? — tzaman
– tzaman, Commented Sep 30, 2015 at 6:46
@tzaman made few edits and improved explaining. Yes I do expect to check with current time so the ambiguous situation to be handled. — Sitz Blogz
– Sitz Blogz, Commented Sep 30, 2015 at 6:55

chm · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-30 06:45:27Z

1

You need to read them all into a common datetime object, then print them all out from that object.

Unfortunately the best way to read in multiple formats is to have a list of possible formats and just try using each one.

For example:

import datetime

POSSIBLE_FORMATS = ['%h%m%s', ...]

for date in dates:
    for format in POSSIBLE_FORMATS:
        try:
            formatted = datetime.strptime(date, format)
            print formatted # will be the same format every time
            break # found it, stop trying formats
        except:
            pass # wrong format, keep trying formats

answered Sep 30, 2015 at 6:45

chm

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