Recipes: Dates and times

Short, task-focused how-tos for specific things you'll want to do with dates and times. Each recipe assumes you already know the basics — if a term surprises you, the Learn section is one click away.

Unlike the tutorials, the recipes don't have a recommended order. Pick whichever is useful right now.

Recipes in this guide

• Parse a messy date column — strategies for data where dates arrive in several different formats.
• Compute durations and ages — days between dates, age in years, "human" durations like "3 days ago".
• Convert between time zones — turning UTC into local time, handling DST transitions, and round-trips.
• Avoid common date/time mistakes — the naive/aware mix, DST gaps, the January 1st gotcha, and others.