pandas.tseries.api.guess_datetime_format

pandas.tseries.api.guess_datetime_format(dt_str, dayfirst=False)

Guess the datetime format of a given datetime string.

This function attempts to deduce the format of a given datetime string. It is useful for situations where the datetime format is unknown and needs to be determined for proper parsing. The function is not guaranteed to return a format.

Parameters:

dt_strstr

Datetime string to guess the format of.

dayfirstbool, default False

If True parses dates with the day first, eg 20/01/2005

Warning

dayfirst=True is not strict, but will prefer to parse with day first (this is a known bug).

Returns:

str or Noneret

datetime format string (for strftime or strptime), or None if it can’t be guessed.

See also

to_datetime

Convert argument to datetime.

Timestamp

Pandas replacement for python datetime.datetime object.

DatetimeIndex

Immutable ndarray-like of datetime64 data.

Examples

>>> from pandas.tseries.api import guess_datetime_format
>>> guess_datetime_format('09/13/2023')
'%m/%d/%Y'

>>> guess_datetime_format('2023|September|13')