GT.fmt_date(self, columns=None, rows=None, date_style='iso', pattern='{x}', locale=None)
Format values as dates.
Format input values to time values using one of 17 preset date styles. Input can be in the form of date type or as a ISO-8601 string (in the form of YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS or YYYY-MM-DD).
| Name | Type | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
columns |
SelectExpr |
The columns to target. Can either be a single column name or a series of column names provided in a list. | None |
rows |
int | list[int] | None |
In conjunction with columns=, we can specify which of their rows should undergo formatting. The default is all rows, resulting in all rows in targeted columns being formatted. Alternatively, we can supply a list of row indices. |
None |
date_style |
DateStyle |
The date style to use. By default this is the short name "iso" which corresponds to ISO 8601 date formatting. There are 41 date styles in total and their short names can be viewed using info_date_style(). |
'iso' |
pattern |
str |
A formatting pattern that allows for decoration of the formatted value. The formatted value is represented by the {x} (which can be used multiple times, if needed) and all other characters will be interpreted as string literals. |
'{x}' |
locale |
str | None |
An optional locale identifier that can be used for formatting values according the locale’s rules. Examples include "en" for English (United States) and "fr" for French (France). |
None |
Date_Style ArgumentWe need to supply a preset date style to the date_style argument. The date styles are numerous and can handle localization to any supported locale. The following table provides a listing of all date styles and their output values (corresponding to an input date of 2000-02-29).
| Date Style | Output | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | "iso" |
"2000-02-29" |
| 2 | "wday_month_day_year" |
"Tuesday, February 29, 2000" |
| 3 | "wd_m_day_year" |
"Tue, Feb 29, 2000" |
| 4 | "wday_day_month_year" |
"Tuesday 29 February 2000" |
| 5 | "month_day_year" |
"February 29, 2000" |
| 6 | "m_day_year" |
"Feb 29, 2000" |
| 7 | "day_m_year" |
"29 Feb 2000" |
| 8 | "day_month_year" |
"29 February 2000" |
| 9 | "day_month" |
"29 February" |
| 10 | "day_m" |
"29 Feb" |
| 11 | "year" |
"2000" |
| 12 | "month" |
"February" |
| 13 | "day" |
"29" |
| 14 | "year.mn.day" |
"2000/02/29" |
| 15 | "y.mn.day" |
"00/02/29" |
| 16 | "year_week" |
"2000-W09" |
| 17 | "year_quarter" |
"2000-Q1" |
We can use the info_date_style() function within the console to view a similar table of date styles with example output.
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| GT | The GT object is returned. This is the same object that the method is called on so that we can facilitate method chaining. |
LocaleThis formatting method can adapt outputs according to a provided locale value. Examples include "en" for English (United States) and "fr" for French (France). Note that a locale value provided here will override any global locale setting performed in GT()’s own locale argument (it is settable there as a value received by all other methods that have a locale argument).
Let’s use the exibble dataset to create a simple, two-column table (keeping only the date and time columns). With the fmt_date() method, we’ll format the date column to display dates formatted with the "month_day_year" date style.
from great_tables import GT, exibble
exibble_mini = exibble[["date", "time"]]
(
GT(exibble_mini)
.fmt_date(columns="date", date_style="month_day_year")
)| date | time |
|---|---|
| January 15, 2015 | 13:35 |
| February 15, 2015 | 14:40 |
| March 15, 2015 | 15:45 |
| April 15, 2015 | 16:50 |
| May 15, 2015 | 17:55 |
| June 15, 2015 | |
| 19:10 | |
| August 15, 2015 | 20:20 |
The functional version of this method, val_fmt_date(), allows you to format a single numerical value (or a list of them).