# Datatable datetime format **URL:** \ **Category:** Dash Python\ **Created:** [November 9, 2019, 2:08am UTC](https://community.plotly.com/t/datatable-datetime-format/31091 "2019-11-09T02:08:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![PBK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b9e5f3/32.png) [@PBK](https://community.plotly.com/u/PBK)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2019, 2:08am UTC](https://community.plotly.com/t/datatable-datetime-format/31091/1 "2019-11-09T02:08:17Z")
I have data from a pandas dataframe that I want to put in a datatable. The first field is a date. It’s formatted YYYY-MM-DD in pandas. In the dataframe it’s format is YYYY-MM-DDT00:00:00. How do I get time out of the format in the dataframe? In all of the examples in the DataTable user guide dates are in YYYY-MM-DD format. This worked properly in an earlier version of Dash and DataTable (I believe the version of Dash was 0.4). ---
**Author:** ![Falc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Falc](https://community.plotly.com/u/Falc)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2019, 5:43pm UTC](https://community.plotly.com/t/datatable-datetime-format/31091/2 "2019-12-08T17:43:20Z")
I’m also having this issue. Anyone found a fix? ---
**Author:** ![Gingey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/dfb087/32.png) [@Gingey](https://community.plotly.com/u/Gingey)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2019, 8:21pm UTC](https://community.plotly.com/t/datatable-datetime-format/31091/3 "2019-12-12T20:21:20Z")
I hit all my date columns with this before populating the DataTable component: ```auto for x in ["Date Col1", "Date Col2", "Date Col3"]: if x in df.columns: df[x] = pd.to_datetime(df[x], format="%Y-%m-%d").dt.floor("d") ``` ---
**Author:** ![Falc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Falc](https://community.plotly.com/u/Falc)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2020, 10:01am UTC](https://community.plotly.com/t/datatable-datetime-format/31091/4 "2020-01-07T10:01:48Z")
That doesn’t work for me unfortunately, Dash still adds the extra ‘00:00:00’. ---
**Author:** ![marlon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8c91f0/32.png) [@marlon](https://community.plotly.com/u/marlon)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2020, 1:41pm UTC](https://community.plotly.com/t/datatable-datetime-format/31091/5 "2020-01-14T13:41:28Z")
Assuming that your column is named as “Date\_Col”, you can format it before creating the data table: ```auto df.Date_Col = pd.DatetimeIndex(df.Date_Col).strftime("%Y-%m-%d") ``` That should do it. Also refer to this documentation for further details [https://dash.plot.ly/datatable/typing](https://dash.plot.ly/datatable/typing). ---
**Author:** ![Falc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Falc](https://community.plotly.com/u/Falc)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2020, 7:12pm UTC](https://community.plotly.com/t/datatable-datetime-format/31091/6 "2020-01-17T19:12:37Z")
Thanks that worked! I’ll check out that documentation ---
**Author:** ![ozan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/f4b2a3/32.png) [@ozan](https://community.plotly.com/u/ozan)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2020, 4:23pm UTC](https://community.plotly.com/t/datatable-datetime-format/31091/7 "2020-05-31T16:23:15Z")
Sorting doesn’t work since strftime converts to string ---
**Author:** ![OnkelNuun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/dfb087/32.png) [@OnkelNuun](https://community.plotly.com/u/OnkelNuun)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2020, 3:12pm UTC](https://community.plotly.com/t/datatable-datetime-format/31091/8 "2020-06-03T15:12:11Z")
I haven´t yet found a ‘format’ solution in the table that allows to sort by date. Workaround: I used the index numbers of the df (sorted by datetime) as an “id” column in the table to sort by date. ---
**Author:** ![zachmorris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/858c86/32.png) [@zachmorris](https://community.plotly.com/u/zachmorris)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2020, 10:00pm UTC](https://community.plotly.com/t/datatable-datetime-format/31091/9 "2020-08-11T22:00:22Z")
Just bumping this topic. I’m not understanding how I can format a datetime column while still allowing it to be sorted correctly. Something like: ```auto columns=[{'id':'Date','name':'My Formatted Date','type': 'datetime', 'format:'???'}] ``` But I’m not understanding what that ??? should be. ---
**Author:** ![saufrec](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b9e5f3/32.png) [@saufrec](https://community.plotly.com/u/saufrec)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2020, 9:01pm UTC](https://community.plotly.com/t/datatable-datetime-format/31091/10 "2020-08-26T21:01:56Z")
According to [https://dash.plotly.com/datatable/reference](https://dash.plotly.com/datatable/reference), columns.format is “derived from the [d3-format](https://github.com/d3/d3-format) library specification”, which doesn’t have any date-formatting functionality. So that definitely won’t work. If you change the date column of the DataFrame into a string with the format YYYY-MM-DD, before you send the DataFrame to the Datatable, then it will display correctly and sort correctly, because alphabetical order on the string is the same as chronological order. ---
**Author:** ![danpryjma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee59a6/32.png) [@danpryjma](https://community.plotly.com/u/danpryjma)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2021, 10:00am UTC](https://community.plotly.com/t/datatable-datetime-format/31091/11 "2021-02-15T10:00:13Z")
For me the way it works best is to convert the data in pandas to dt.date format: df[date\_col] = df[date\_col].dt.date When you move this to datatable it keeps just YYYY-MM-DD with no time and it still is a date.