Converting text field to date field in ArcGIS Pro

Question

How to convert date, which is in text formated field to date formated field?

Also, there is dates which have only year, without days and months and empty fields.

I've tried Convert Time Field. But it gave me null values

Answer 1

You can use strptime but it is probably easier to use pandas.to_datetime to convert the strings to datetimes. It is smarter/more flexible and can handle different string formats. Add a date field, create a function in Field Calculator or use da.UpdateCursor:

import arcpy
import pandas as pd

table = r'C:\folder\Default.gdb\datedata' #Change to match your data
fields = ['somedateasstring','datefield'] #Change to match your data

with arcpy.da.UpdateCursor(table, fields) as cursor:
    for row in cursor:
        row[1] = pd.to_datetime(row[0], errors='coerce') #Rows that cant be converted to date will be set to None with errors='coerce'
        cursor.updateRow(row)