ENH: make guess_datetime_format public

[joefutrelle]

Feature Type

• Adding new functionality to pandas

• Changing existing functionality in pandas

• Removing existing functionality in pandas

Problem Description

Pandas can infer datetime formats when parsing datetimes, but does not provide access to the inferred format via a public API.

Feature Description

Currently, guess_datetime_format is in pandas.core.tools.datetimes which is not public. Exporting it from a non-private module would address the issue.

Alternative Solutions

As far as I can tell, no other Python library provides this requested feature.

Additional Context

As discussed in dateutil/dateutil#1138

[MarcoGorelli]

sounds good - fancy making a pull request?

[nikhilreddy2002]

take

[nikhilreddy2002]

Hey @joefutrelle ,
I could not find guess_datetime_format are you referring to _guess_datetime_format_for_array?

[joefutrelle]

If I read this correctly, the import into pandas.core.tools.datetimes is here and the implementation is here.

[nikhilreddy2002]

Hey @joefutrelle ,
From what I understood the guess_datetime_format should be moved to pandas.core.tools.datetimes, is this correct or is there some other place it should be. Or should I write a function in pandas.core.tools.datetimes which uses guess_datetime_format internally?

[joefutrelle]

According to the docs, everything in pandas.core.* is private, so it would need to go somewhere else. to_datetime is at the top level and because this is related it could go there but I would defer to core developers on where the appropriate place for datetime utilities is.

The pandas.core, pandas.compat, and pandas.util top-level modules are PRIVATE. Stable functionality in such modules is not guaranteed.

[MarcoGorelli]

How about adding pandas.api.tools, and putting this in there?

[MarcoGorelli]

As suggested on Slack by @mroeschke , pandas.tseries might be a better place

[Birger9]

Hi! Is see that @nikhilreddy2002 is assigned to this issue. But I can't see any activity the last week. I would like to start contributing to this project. I'm studying an open source course at University that requires us to get involved in an open source project. So I would love to contribute to Pandas codebase :) And this issue seems like a good start for me @joefutrelle