Change the date format with Python

Question

I’m looking to change the date format from 02/01/2021 to 2/1/21. What’s the possible solution?

I tried slicing:

start = 20 
df["year"]= df["year"].astype(str)
df["year"]= df["year"].str.slice(start)

I know it’s wrong, but I don’t have any idea how to do this.

There is no [tag:python] in your question. – Peter Wood Oct 11 '22 at 15:04 — Peter Wood, Oct 11 '22 at 15:04
See how to create a [mcve] and [edit] the question. – Peter Wood Oct 11 '22 at 15:04 — Peter Wood, Oct 11 '22 at 15:04
Why are your two examples not the same day? – Mark Ransom Oct 11 '22 at 15:20 — Mark Ransom, Oct 11 '22 at 15:20

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 11 '22 at 15:17

1

from datetime import datetime

date = datetime.strptime("02/01/2021", "%d/%m/%Y")

print(date.strftime("%d/%#m/%y"))

Output:

02/1/21

PS: you can use - instead of # if you are on Linux.

answered Oct 11 '22 at 15:17

Aymen

It works but how to make it dynamic not fixed, since it’s a dataframe. – Abdulrahmaannn Oct 11 '22 at 15:25
@AbdulrahmanHenedy It depends on your `df`. You can try to concatenate the date in one string like this `df['day'] + '/' + df['month'] + '/' + df['year']` – Aymen Oct 11 '22 at 15:29
But this can’t get me the structure i need '2/1/21'. Can you explain a bit more with a code? – Abdulrahmaannn Oct 11 '22 at 15:46
@AbdulrahmanHenedy use `.lstrip(0)` on the string. – Mark Ransom Oct 11 '22 at 23:34

1 Answers1