Problem converting a column to datetime format

Question

I have a data frame and I am trying to convert the time column into a datetime format. The first step I did was:

data['time'] = data.time
data['time']=pd.to_datetime(data['time'], format='%H:%M:%S.%f')

This helped me successfully change the time column to:

dtype('\<M8\[ns\]')

But this gave me "1900-01-01" in every cell. My idea is to extract the time part from it by:

data['time']=data['time'].dt.time

That kind of works as well but the type got changed back to:

dtype('O')

Is there any way I can fix this?

Please edit the title of your question to be descriptive, unambiguous, and specific to what you are asking. For more guidance, see How do I write a good title?. — jps
– jps, Commented Nov 18 at 14:55
There is no native dtype for time-only values in pandas, so use timedelta or keep it as object. — Panda Kim
– Panda Kim, Commented Nov 18 at 23:30

B33M0 · Accepted Answer · 2025-11-18 17:05:03Z

2

You're converting a time into a datetime object, which contains a date too. The date "1900-01-01" is just a placeholder for the missing date information.

You should still be able to work with it directly:

data['time'].dt.hour      # get hours
data['time'].dt.minute    # get minutes
data['time'].dt.strftime('%H:%M:%S.%f')  # format for output

If you actually just wanted a duration, I'd recommend using timedelta for your data:


data['time'] = pd.to_timedelta(data['time'])

answered Nov 18 at 17:05

B33M0

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1 Comment

Hamza Rehan Nov 19 at 9:15

No I don't want the duration, only the value in my column to be datetime format and stay like that. I did manage to do it, if you see in the above example but then it automatically changed back to object, so was just curious about this strange behaviour.

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