Split dataframe column into two based on first occurrence of an item in column value

Question

I have the following dataframe with 4 columns:

    IP  Time    URL Staus
0   10.128.2.1  [29/Nov/2017:06:58:55   GET /login.php HTTP/1.1 200
1   10.128.2.1  [29/Nov/2017:06:59:02   POST /process.php HTTP/1.1  302
2   10.128.2.1  [29/Nov/2017:06:59:03   GET /home.php HTTP/1.1  200
3   10.131.2.1  [29/Nov/2017:06:59:04   GET /js/vendor/moment.min.js HTTP/1.1   200
4   10.130.2.1  [29/Nov/2017:06:59:06   GET /bootstrap-3.3.7/js/bootstrap.js HTTP/1.1   200
5   10.130.2.1  [29/Nov/2017:06:59:19   GET /profile.php?user=bala HTTP/1.1 200

I need to split the Time column into two new columns titled 'date' and 'time'. I need to split the current value under the Time column by the first occurrence of ':'.

I have tried the split function for the first instance of ':' as follows:

df['date','time']=df.Time.str.split(":", 1)

But this is what i end up getting:

    IP  Time    URL Staus   (date, time)
0   10.128.2.1  [29/Nov/2017:06:58:55   GET /login.php HTTP/1.1 200 [[29/Nov/2017, 06:58:55]
1   10.128.2.1  [29/Nov/2017:06:59:02   POST /process.php HTTP/1.1  302 [[29/Nov/2017, 06:59:02]
2   10.128.2.1  [29/Nov/2017:06:59:03   GET /home.php HTTP/1.1  200 [[29/Nov/2017, 06:59:03]
3   10.131.2.1  [29/Nov/2017:06:59:04   GET /js/vendor/moment.min.js HTTP/1.1   200 [[29/Nov/2017, 06:59:04]

How do I properly split into two columns? What am I doing wrong? Help :(

Answer 1

Add parameter expand=True for DataFrame and then add [] for new columns:

df[['date','time']] = df.Time.str.split(":", 1, expand=True)
print (df)
           IP                   Time                        URL  Staus  \
0  10.128.2.1  [29/Nov/2017:06:58:55     GET/login.php HTTP/1.1    200   
1  10.128.2.1  [29/Nov/2017:06:59:02  POST/process.php HTTP/1.1    302   

           date      time  
0  [29/Nov/2017  06:58:55  
1  [29/Nov/2017  06:59:02  

Or also add Series.str.strip for remove trailing [] :

df[['date','time']] = df.Time.str.strip('[]').str.split(":", 1, expand=True)
print (df)
           IP                   Time                        URL  Staus  \
0  10.128.2.1  [29/Nov/2017:06:58:55     GET/login.php HTTP/1.1    200   
1  10.128.2.1  [29/Nov/2017:06:59:02  POST/process.php HTTP/1.1    302   

          date      time  
0  29/Nov/2017  06:58:55  
1  29/Nov/2017  06:59:02