How To Convert Date Format In CSV File Using Python

Converting date format in CSV files using Python can be useful when dealing with large datasets. In some cases, the date format in a CSV file may not be in a format that is compatible with the software you are using or may not be in a readable format.

In this tutorial, we will go over the steps on how to convert date format in a CSV file using Python.

Steps:

1. Create a CSV file

Date,Value
01/01/2022,100
02/01/2022,200

2. Install pandas library

To manipulate data in the CSV file, we need to install the pandas library. If you do not have the Pandas library, you can install it by running the following command:

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!pip install pandas

3. Read the CSV file

Next, read the CSV file using the read_csv() function of the pandas library. This function can read a CSV file in a table format and convert it into a dataframe.

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import pandas as pd
 
df = pd.read_csv('file.csv')

4. Convert date format

Now that we have the CSV file read into the pandas dataframe, we can manipulate the date format using the to_datetime() function. This function converts the date format in the dataframe into a format that is suitable for analysis.

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df['Date'] = pd.to_datetime(df['Date'], format='%m/%d/%Y')

In the above code, we are converting the date format in the ‘Date’ column of the dataframe to a format of ‘mm/dd/yyyy’. You can adjust the format according to your preference by changing the format parameter accordingly.

5. Write to a new CSV file

Finally, we can write the modified dataframe to a new CSV file using the to_csv() function. This function writes the dataframe to a CSV file in a tabular format.

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df.to_csv('file_new.csv')

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we learned how to convert date format in a CSV file using Python.

We used the pandas library to read the CSV file into a dataframe, then used the to_datetime() function to convert the date format, and finally wrote the modified dataframe to a new CSV file using the to_csv() function.

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import pandas as pd
 
# Read CSV file
df = pd.read_csv('file.csv')
 
# Convert date format
df['Date'] = pd.to_datetime(df['Date'], format='%m/%d/%Y')
 
# Write to new CSV file
df.to_csv('file_new.csv')

Output:

Here is the output data:

Date,Value
2022-01-01,100
2022-02-01,200