Confused on Index Slicing in python

Question

I am slicing my hour column and when I use slice(1, 3) and slice(0, 3) I get the same results. What am i missing? See in the image below.

Post a working example we can copy - including initializing the dataframe. Its best if its a small demonstration dataset. We don't need a dozen columns and who knows how many rows when the question regards a few columns. — tdelaney, Oct 13 '20 at 04:51
It would be helpful if you can provide data for [minimal reproducible example](https://stackoverflow.com/help/minimal-reproducible-example). — akane, Oct 13 '20 at 04:52
And include `dataset.dtypes`. If `02:00:00` is a string and you slice it to 0:3, you get `"02:"` which would fail when initializing an `int`. `dataset["hour"].str.sllice(0,3)` would be interesting to see what happens there. — tdelaney, Oct 13 '20 at 05:07
My guess is there's a space at the beginning of `dataset["hour"]`. So `slice(0, 3)` is `" 02"` while `slice(1, 3)` is `"02"` — Barmar, Oct 13 '20 at 05:24
@Barmar Thank you. And yes, you are right. There is indeed a space at the beginning. So, I didn't notice it. Also, can you guide me how to mark this as an answer because it is in a comment section and not answer section Sorry I'm new to stack overflow. — Meet Shah, Oct 14 '20 at 03:13

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 13 '20 at 21:16

1

If it's needed to extract an hour from the time, it probably would be better to use:

dataset['hour'] = pd.to_datetime(dataset['hour'],format= '%H:%M:%S' ).dt.hour

answered Oct 13 '20 at 21:16

Alexandra Dudkina

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 14 '20 at 03:46

1

There is a space at the beginning of dataset["hour"].

So slice(0, 3) is " 02" while slice(1, 3) is "02".

This was answered by @Barmar on comment.

edited Oct 14 '20 at 03:46

4b0

answered Oct 14 '20 at 03:31

Meet Shah

2 Answers2