split datetime column into date and time columns in pandas

Question

I have a following question. I have a date_time column in my dataframe (and many other columns).

df["Date_time"].head()
0    2021-05-15 09:54
1    2021-05-27 17:04
2    2021-05-27 00:00
3    2021-05-27 09:36
4    2021-05-26 18:39
Name: Date_time, dtype: object

I would like to split this column into two (date and time).

I use this formula that works fine:

df["Date"] = ""
df["Time"] = ""

def split_date_time(data_frame):
    for i in range(0, len(data_frame)):
        df["Date"][i] = df["Date_time"][i].split()[0]
        df["Time"][i] = df["Date_time"][i].split()[1]

split_date_time(df)

But is there a more elegant way? Thanks

Answer 1

dt accessor can give you date and time separately:

df["Date"] = df["Date_time"].dt.date
df["Time"] = df["Date_time"].dt.time

to get

>>> df

            Date_time        Date      Time
0 2021-05-15 09:54:00  2021-05-15  09:54:00
1 2021-05-27 17:04:00  2021-05-27  17:04:00
2 2021-05-27 00:00:00  2021-05-27  00:00:00
3 2021-05-27 09:36:00  2021-05-27  09:36:00
4 2021-05-26 18:39:00  2021-05-26  18:39:00