[FIXED] Cast decimal number to datetime in Pandas

Issue

I am attempting to convert a decimal number to a datatime. An example dateframe is:

     timestep_time  vehicle_angle  vehicle_id  vehicle_pos  vehicle_speed  vehicle_x  vehicle_y  Cluster
0             0.00         113.79           0         5.10           0.00     295.36     438.47        1
1             1.00         113.79           0         6.73           1.63     296.85     437.82        1
2             1.01         203.94           1         5.10           0.00     278.32     434.32        9
3             2.00         113.79           0        10.00           3.27     299.84     436.50        1
4             2.01         203.94           1         6.50           1.40     277.75     433.04        9
5             2.02          23.94           2         5.10           0.00     255.88     375.91        1

I am not super concerned with the actual units of time, I just need it as a datetime object. So, I have tried:

posBirch["timestep_time"] = pd.to_datetime(posBirch["timestep_time"], format='%M.%S')

and

posBirch["timestep_time"] = pd.to_datetime(posBirch["timestep_time"], format='%S.%f')

# Error:

ValueError: time data '0' does not match format '%M.%S' (match)

posBirch["timestep_time"] = pd.to_datetime(posBirch["timestep_time"], format='%S')

# Yields no error but drops decimal which I need to keep timesteps unique which I will later use for indexing i.e.:

1   1900-01-01 00:00:01         113.79           0         6.73           1.63     296.85     437.82        1
2   1900-01-01 00:00:01         203.94           1         5.10           0.00     278.32     434.32        9

posBirch["timestep_time"] = pd.to_datetime(posBirch["timestep_time"], format='%-S')

# Error:

ValueError: '-' is a bad directive in format '%-S'

How can I just convert this decimal to a unique datetime value? Units do not matter too much as this is a pseudo-timestep anyway, but I guess ideally seconds.

Solution

Here's what ended up working:

posBirch['TimeStamp'] = pd.to_datetime(posBirch['timestep_time'], unit='s')

Answered By - Sam Dean