How to concatenate time and date field into one field using ArcGIS for Desktop Field Calculator or Python?

Question

I have two fields, one is ISSUEDDATE and the other is ISSUEDTIME. I would like to concatenate fields so that the ISSUEDDATE is in m/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss format.

My ISSUEDTIME field is a string and ISSUEDDATE is a date field and the ISSUEDDATE isn't consistent. Some of the values read as m/dd/yyyy 7:00:00 AM while others are m/d/yyyy. ISSUEDTIME isn't consistent either as some are AM/PM and others are 24 hour time.

How can I accomplish this without adding a field?

I have tried to concatenate the two fields, but it fails. Since there are two time formats, the solution below fails also. I can execute this via selection and field calculate but would like for it to be done in one go.

Answer 1

This can be done in field calculator. Open a field calculator window for your field IssuedDate. Set the parser to Python and check Show Codeblock. In the pre-logic script code box enter:

import re
from datetime import datetime

def timeconvert(timestr):
    if re.search("PM|AM|pm|am", timestr):
        newtime = datetime.strptime(timestr, '%I:%M:%S %p').time()
    else:
        newtime = datetime.strptime(timestr, "%H:%M:%S").time()
    return newtime

In the code box enter: datetime.combine(datetime.strptime(str( !IssuredDate! ).split(" ")[0] , "%m/%d/%Y"), timeconvert( !IssuedTime! ))

That should take care of the inconsistent entries in the IssuedDate field.