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# How to Convert String, DateTime Or TimeStamp to Time in Pandas
- URL: https://datascientyst.com/convert-string-datetime-timestamp-time-pandas/
- Published: 2022-10-15T08:04:09.000Z
- Updated: 2022-10-15T08:04:09.000Z
- Author: John D K
- Tags: Time Series

In this article we will see how to **extract time only from string or datetime in Pandas.**

First, we'll create an example DataFrame to test it. Next, we'll explain several examples in more detail.

**(1) extract time with .dt.time - datetime.time**

```python
df['date'].dt.time

```

**(2) get time by .dt.strftime('%H:%M') as string**

```python
df['date'].dt.strftime('%H:%M')

```

## Setup

Let's work with the following DataFrame which has date and time information stored as a string:

```python
import pandas as pd
dict = {'date': {0: '28-01-2022  5:25:00 PM',
  1: '27-02-2022  6:25:00 PM',
  2: '30-03-2022  7:25:00 PM',
  3: '29-04-2022  8:25:00 PM',
  4: '31-05-2022  9:25:00 PM'},
 'date_short': {0: 'Jan-2022', 1: 'Feb-2022', 2: 'Mar-2022', 3: 'Apr-2022', 4: 'May-2022'}}

df = pd.DataFrame(dict)

```

DataFrame looks like:

|   | date                  | date\_short |
| - | --------------------- | ----------- |
| 0 | 28-01-2022 5:25:00 PM | Jan-2022    |
| 1 | 27-02-2022 6:25:00 PM | Feb-2022    |
| 2 | 30-03-2022 7:25:00 PM | Mar-2022    |
| 3 | 29-04-2022 8:25:00 PM | Apr-2022    |
| 4 | 31-05-2022 9:25:00 PM | May-2022    |

## String to datetime

Convert string to datetime with Pandas:

```python
df['date'] = pd.to_datetime(df['date'])

```

## Extract time with .dt.time as datetime.time

Once we have datetime in Pandas we can extract time very easily by using: `.dt.time`.

Default format of extraction is: `HH:MM:SS`. It returns a numpy array of datetime.time objects.

```python
df['date'].dt.time

```

will give us:

```
0    17:25:00
1    18:25:00
2    19:25:00
3    20:25:00
4    21:25:00
Name: date, dtype: object

```

## Get time by .dt.strftime('%H:%M') as string

For custom format we can use - `.dt.strftime('%H:%M')`.

`strftime` returns strings formatted in time format given as parameter

```python
df['date'].dt.strftime('%H:%M')

```

will give us:

```
0    17:25
1    18:25
2    19:25
3    20:25
4    21:25
Name: date, dtype: object

```

We can find more information on this link: [pandas.Series.dt.strftime](https://pandas.pydata.org/docs/reference/api/pandas.Series.dt.strftime.html?ref=datascientyst.com)

![](https://datascientyst.com/content/images/2022/10/convert-string-datetime-timestamp-time-pandas.png)

## Conclusion

To summarize we saw how to extract time with Pandas in two ways. First by using `.dt.time` as datetime.

Second one extracts time as a string in any format needed.