Python is a widely-used programming language that is very popular with developers due to its simplicity, readability, and powerful libraries. It is an excellent language for data manipulation and analysis, and one of its strengths is its ability to handle dates and times.
If you’re working with dates in your Python program, you may need to convert a month number to its corresponding month name or vice versa. In this article, we’ll explore several methods to get a month name from a number or date in Python.
Getting Month Name from Number in Python
1. Using the calendar module
The calendar module is a built-in module in Python that helps to work with calendars.
It provides various functions and classes for working with dates, months, and years. One of its functions is month_name(n), which takes an integer n (1-12) as an argument and returns the full name of the month.
Here’s an example of how you can use this function. “`
import calendar
month_number =
7
month_name = calendar.month_name[month_number]
print(month_name)
“`
Output:
“`
July
“`
Similarly, the month_abbr property returns the abbreviated name of the month, such as ‘Jan’, ‘Feb’, ‘Mar’, and so on. 2.
Using strftime() method of datetime module
The datetime module is a built-in module in Python that provides classes for working with dates and times. The strftime() method is used to format a date object into a string.
It takes a format string as an argument and returns a string representation of the date. The format string can contain various directives that represent different components of the date, such as %B for the full month name or %b for the abbreviated month name.
Here’s an example of how you can use the strftime() method to get the full name of the month. “`
from datetime import datetime
month_number =
7
date_string = f”2022-{month_number}-01″
month_name = datetime.strptime(date_string, ‘%Y-%m-%d’).strftime(‘%B’)
print(month_name)
“`
Output:
“`
July
“`
Getting Month Name from Datetime in Python
1. Using month attribute and calendar module
You can use the month attribute of the datetime object to get the month number and then use the calendar module’s functions to get the month name.
Here’s an example. “`
import calendar
from datetime import datetime
date_string = “2022-0
7-01″
date_object = datetime.strptime(date_string, ‘%Y-%m-%d’)
month_number = date_object.month
month_name = calendar.month_name[month_number]
print(month_name)
“`
Output:
“`
July
“`
2. Using strftime() method
The strftime() method can also be used to get the month name from a datetime object.
Here’s an example. “`
from datetime import datetime
date_string = “2022-0
7-01″
date_object = datetime.strptime(date_string, ‘%Y-%m-%d’)
month_name = date_object.strftime(‘%B’)
print(month_name)
“`
Output:
“`
July
“`
Conclusion
In this article, we explored several methods to get a month name from a number or date in Python. We saw how to use the calendar module and the datetime module’s strftime() method to get the month name.
We also saw how to get the month name using the month attribute of the datetime object. These methods can be very useful when working with dates and times in Python.
In addition to getting the month name from a number or date, there may be situations where you need to convert the month name to a month number or vice versa in Python. In this article, we’ll explore several methods to convert the month name to a month number and the month number to a month name.
Converting Month Name to Month Number in Python
1. Mapping month name to month number using calendar module
The calendar module provides functions to convert month name and month abbreviation to their corresponding month number.
The month_name index starts with None, followed by January, February, and so on, up to December. Here’s an example of how you can use this function.
“`
import calendar
month_name = ‘
July’
month_number = list(calendar.month_name).index(month_name)
print(month_number)
“`
Output:
“`
7
“`
Similarly, the month_abbr index starts with ”, followed by Jan, Feb, and so on, up to Dec. 2.
Mapping month name to month number using datetime module
You can use the strptime() method of the datetime module to convert month name to month number. Here’s an example.
“`
from datetime import datetime
month_name = ‘
July’
month_number = datetime.strptime(month_name, ‘%B’).month
print(month_number)
“`
Output:
“`
7
“`
Converting Month Number to Month Name in Python
1. Mapping month number to month name using calendar module
The calendar module’s month_name and month_abbr properties return a list of month names or month abbreviations indexed by integers 0-12 in which 0 is None.
Here’s an example of how to use this function. “`
import calendar
month_number =
7
month_name = calendar.month_name[month_number]
print(month_name)
“`
Output:
“`
July
“`
2. Mapping month number to month name using datetime module
The datetime module’s strftime() method can be used to convert month number to month name.
Here’s an example. “`
from datetime import datetime
month_number =
7
date_string = f”2022-{month_number}-01″
month_name = datetime.strptime(date_string, ‘%Y-%m-%d’).strftime(‘%B’)
print(month_name)
“`
Output:
“`
July
“`
Converting Month Number to Month Name in Pandas
1. Getting month name from pandas series of multiple dates
The pandas library provides a convenient method to get the month name from a series of dates using the dt.month_name() function.
Here’s an example. “`
import pandas as pd
dates = pd.Series([‘2022-0
7-01′, ‘2022-08-01’, ‘2022-09-01’])
month_name = dates.dt.month_name()
print(month_name)
“`
Output:
“`
0
July
1 August
2 September
dtype: object
“`
2. Converting column of month numbers to month name in pandas dataframe
You can use the apply() method along with a lambda function to convert a column of month numbers to month names in a pandas dataframe.
Here’s an example. “`
import pandas as pd
import calendar
df = pd.DataFrame({‘Month’: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,
7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12]})
df[‘Month_Name’] = df[‘Month’].apply(lambda x: calendar.month_name[x])
print(df)
“`
Output:
“`
Month Month_Name
0 1 January
1 2 February
2 3 March
3 4 April
4 5 May
5 6 June
6
7
July
7 8 August
8 9 September
9 10 October
10 11 November
11 12 December
“`
Conclusion
In this article, we have explored several methods to convert the month name to a month number and the month number to a month name in Python. We have seen how to use the calendar and datetime modules to map month names to month numbers and vice versa.
We have also learned how to extract month names from pandas series of dates and how to convert a column of month numbers to month names in a pandas dataframe. Using these methods can be useful when working with date and time data in Python or performing data analysis with pandas.
Overall, this article explored several methods to get the month name from a number or date and convert the month name to a month number and vice versa in Python. We have detailed how to use the calendar and datetime modules and introduced an efficient method for working with Pandas when working with date and time data in Python.
By mastering these techniques, you can save time and improve the accuracy of your date-related calculations. Remember that every date-related task will not require the same method, so keep exploring and experimenting with different approaches until you find the ones that best suit your needs.
By doing so, you can create more robust and accurate data-driven applications, ensuring that your code delivers the desired results every time.