Date arithmetic with timedelta in Pandas - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Date Arithmetic with timedelta in pandas

📖 Scenario: You work in a small delivery company. You have a list of package shipment dates. You want to find out the expected delivery dates by adding a fixed number of days to each shipment date.

🎯 Goal: Build a pandas DataFrame with shipment dates, add a timedelta to calculate expected delivery dates, and display the results.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a pandas DataFrame with shipment dates

Create a timedelta variable representing the delivery time

Add the timedelta to each shipment date to get expected delivery dates

Print the DataFrame showing shipment and expected delivery dates

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Delivery companies often need to calculate expected delivery dates by adding fixed transit times to shipment dates.

💼 Career

Data analysts and scientists use date arithmetic to analyze timelines, schedules, and deadlines in many industries.

1

Create a pandas DataFrame with shipment dates

Import pandas as pd and create a DataFrame called shipments with a column 'shipment_date' containing these exact dates as strings: '2024-06-01', '2024-06-05', '2024-06-10'.

Pandas

import pandas as pd
# Create the DataFrame called shipments with shipment_date column
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use pd.DataFrame with a dictionary where the key is 'shipment_date' and the value is the list of date strings.

2

Convert shipment_date to datetime and create timedelta

Convert the 'shipment_date' column in shipments to datetime type using pd.to_datetime(). Then create a variable called delivery_time that is a pd.Timedelta of 7 days.

Pandas

import pandas as pd

shipments = pd.DataFrame({
    'shipment_date': ['2024-06-01', '2024-06-05', '2024-06-10']
})

# Convert shipment_date to datetime
# Create delivery_time as 7 days timedelta
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use pd.to_datetime() to convert the column. Use pd.Timedelta(days=7) to create the timedelta.

3

Calculate expected delivery dates by adding timedelta

Create a new column in shipments called 'expected_delivery' by adding the delivery_time timedelta to the 'shipment_date' column.

Pandas

import pandas as pd

shipments = pd.DataFrame({
    'shipment_date': ['2024-06-01', '2024-06-05', '2024-06-10']
})

shipments['shipment_date'] = pd.to_datetime(shipments['shipment_date'])
delivery_time = pd.Timedelta(days=7)

# Add delivery_time to shipment_date to create expected_delivery
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use simple addition of the timedelta to the datetime column to create the new column.

4

Print the DataFrame with shipment and expected delivery dates

Print the shipments DataFrame to show the 'shipment_date' and 'expected_delivery' columns.

Pandas

import pandas as pd

shipments = pd.DataFrame({
    'shipment_date': ['2024-06-01', '2024-06-05', '2024-06-10']
})

shipments['shipment_date'] = pd.to_datetime(shipments['shipment_date'])
delivery_time = pd.Timedelta(days=7)

shipments['expected_delivery'] = shipments['shipment_date'] + delivery_time

# Print the shipments DataFrame
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use print(shipments) to display the DataFrame.