Introduction to pd.date_range - Python

pd.date_range is a powerful function provided by the Python pandas library for generating a fixed frequency date range. It is commonly used for creating time-series data or working with temporal data in pandas.

Syntax

The basic syntax of pd.date_range is as follows:

pd.date_range(start=None, end=None, periods=None, freq=None, tz=None, normalize=False, name=None, closed=None)

Parameters

• start (optional): The starting date. Defaults to None.
• end (optional): The ending date. Defaults to None.
• periods (optional): The number of periods to generate. Either end or periods must be specified, but not both.
• freq (optional): The frequency of the date range. This can be a frequency string like 'D' for daily, 'M' for monthly, 'A' for annual, etc. Defaults to None.
• tz (optional): Time zone name for the date range. Defaults to None.
• normalize (optional): If True, normalize start/end dates to midnight. Defaults to False.
• name (optional): Name of the resulting DatetimeIndex. Defaults to None.
• closed (optional): Make the interval closed with respect to the given frequency to the end point. Defaults to None.

Returns

pd.date_range returns a DatetimeIndex that represents the generated date range.

Examples

1. Generate a range of dates from the starting date to the ending date:

import pandas as pd

# Generate a range of dates from '2022-01-01' to '2022-01-10'
date_range = pd.date_range(start='2022-01-01', end='2022-01-10')

2. Generate a range of dates with a specific frequency:

import pandas as pd

# Generate a range of dates with a monthly frequency from '2022-01-01' to '2022-12-31'
date_range = pd.date_range(start='2022-01-01', end='2022-12-31', freq='M')

3. Generate a range of dates for a specific number of periods:

import pandas as pd

# Generate a range of dates for 5 periods starting from '2022-01-01'
date_range = pd.date_range(start='2022-01-01', periods=5)

4. Generate a range of dates with a specific time zone:

import pandas as pd
import pytz

# Generate a range of dates from '2022-01-01' to '2022-01-10' in 'Asia/Kolkata' time zone
date_range = pd.date_range(start='2022-01-01', end='2022-01-10', tz=pytz.timezone('Asia/Kolkata'))

These are just a few examples of how pd.date_range can be used. It provides great flexibility in generating date ranges according to different requirements.

To summarize, pd.date_range is a useful function in Python pandas for generating fixed frequency date ranges. It is a convenient tool for working with time-series data and handling temporal operations.