Time Series / Date functionality¶
pandas has proven very successful as a tool for working with time series data,
especially in the financial data analysis space. Using the NumPy datetime64
and timedelta64
dtypes,
we have consolidated a large number of features from other Python libraries like scikits.timeseries
as well as created
a tremendous amount of new functionality for manipulating time series data.
In working with time series data, we will frequently seek to:
- generate sequences of fixed-frequency dates and time spans
- conform or convert time series to a particular frequency
- compute “relative” dates based on various non-standard time increments (e.g. 5 business days before the last business day of the year), or “roll” dates forward or backward
pandas provides a relatively compact and self-contained set of tools for performing the above tasks.
Create a range of dates:
# 72 hours starting with midnight Jan 1st, 2011
In [1]: rng = pd.date_range('1/1/2011', periods=72, freq='H')
In [2]: rng[:5]
Out[2]:
DatetimeIndex(['2011-01-01 00:00:00', '2011-01-01 01:00:00',
'2011-01-01 02:00:00', '2011-01-01 03:00:00',
'2011-01-01 04:00:00'],
dtype='datetime64[ns]', freq='H')
Index pandas objects with dates:
In [3]: ts = pd.Series(np.random.randn(len(rng)), index=rng)
In [4]: ts.head()
Out[4]:
2011-01-01 00:00:00 0.469112
2011-01-01 01:00:00 -0.282863
2011-01-01 02:00:00 -1.509059
2011-01-01 03:00:00 -1.135632
2011-01-01 04:00:00 1.212112
Freq: H, dtype: float64
Change frequency and fill gaps:
# to 45 minute frequency and forward fill
In [5]: converted = ts.asfreq('45Min', method='pad')
In [6]: converted.head()
Out[6]:
2011-01-01 00:00:00 0.469112
2011-01-01 00:45:00 0.469112
2011-01-01 01:30:00 -0.282863
2011-01-01 02:15:00 -1.509059
2011-01-01 03:00:00 -1.135632
Freq: 45T, dtype: float64
Resample the series to a daily frequency:
# Daily means
In [7]: ts.resample('D').mean()
Out[7]:
2011-01-01 -0.319569
2011-01-02 -0.337703
2011-01-03 0.117258
Freq: D, dtype: float64
Overview¶
The following table shows the type of time-related classes pandas can handle and how to create them.
Class | Remarks | How to create |
---|---|---|
Timestamp |
Represents a single timestamp | to_datetime , Timestamp |
DatetimeIndex |
Index of Timestamp |
to_datetime , date_range , bdate_range , DatetimeIndex |
Period |
Represents a single time span | Period |
PeriodIndex |
Index of Period |
period_range , PeriodIndex |
Timestamps vs. Time Spans¶
Timestamped data is the most basic type of time series data that associates values with points in time. For pandas objects it means using the points in time.
In [8]: pd.Timestamp(datetime(2012, 5, 1))
Out[8]: Timestamp('2012-05-01 00:00:00')
In [9]: pd.Timestamp('2012-05-01')