Subtracting dates and only take out number of days as number

Question

 #Under d.types i can confirm they are both datetime objects
 date1      datetime64[ns]
 date2      datetime64[ns]

 df_test['snaptoexpectedStart'] = df['date1'] - df['date2']
 TypeError: '<' not supported between instances of 'str' and 'int'

I dont understand why I'm getting that error when both the columns im trying to subtract are in the correct format.

Does this answer your question? [Pandas: Subtracting two date columns and the result being an integer](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37840812/pandas-subtracting-two-date-columns-and-the-result-being-an-integer) — PacketLoss, May 14 '20 at 21:57

Umar Aftab · Answer 1 · 2020-05-14T22:03:28.030

0

I guess it has something to do with the datetime format I suppose, try casting this way to see if it works :

from datetime import datetime
df_test['snaptoexpectedStart'] = datetime(df['date1']) - datetime(df['date2'])

If you are looking to get the number of days only than try this :

df_test['snaptoexpectedStart'] = (df_test['date1'] - df_test['date2Date']).dt.days

edited May 14 '20 at 22:03

answered May 14 '20 at 21:57

Umar Aftab

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Now I'm getting the following error :( TypeError: cannot convert the series to – Zee May 14 '20 at 22:01
I tried that one too, its giving me the same error unfortunately – Zee May 14 '20 at 22:04

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered May 14 '20 at 22:05

You might want to look into the timedelta class: According to the API, subtracting two datetimes (assuming they are datetime.datetimes) results in a timedelta object. You can then use the .day attribute of the timedelta to get the difference in days.

Subtracting dates and only take out number of days as number

2 Answers2