Python Pandas - Date Column to Column index

dataframe, pandas, python

Solution

You can use `set_index`:

df.set_index('month')

For example:

In [1]: df = pd.DataFrame([[1, datetime(2011,1,1)], [2, datetime(2011,1,2)]], columns=['a', 'b'])

In [2]: df
Out[2]: 
   a                   b
0  1 2011-01-01 00:00:00
1  2 2011-01-02 00:00:00

In [3]: df.set_index('b')
Out[3]: 
            a
b            
2011-01-01  1
2011-01-02  2

Problem

I have a table of data imported from a CSV file into a DataFrame. The data contains around 10 categorical fields, 1 month column (in date time format) and the rest are data series. How do I convert the date column into an index across the the column axis?

Original source