Parsing Dates in Pandas

Date columns often load as strings. Convert them to proper datetime for time-based operations.

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

Pandas intelligently parses most date formats. For unusual formats, specify explicitly:

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

Parse during CSV read:

df = pd.read_csv('data.csv', parse_dates=['date_column'])

Once parsed, you unlock powerful date operations - filtering by date ranges, extracting components, calculating durations.

I cover datetime thoroughly in my Pandas course.