Numpy Linspace of Dates in Python

Numpy is a popular library in Python used to perform mathematical operations such as array manipulation, linear algebra, Fourier transform, and random number capabilities. In this article, we will discuss how to use the numpy linspace function with dates.

Using Numpy Linspace to Create Dates

Numpy.linspace can be used to create a sequence of equal intervals between two dates. The first step is to import the numpy library.

import numpy as np

Next, we create a start date and end date using the datetime module.

from datetime import datetime, timedelta

start_date = datetime(2021, 1, 1)
end_date = datetime(2021, 2, 1)

Once we have the start and end dates, we can use np.linspace to create an array of dates.

dates = np.linspace(start_date.timestamp(), end_date.timestamp(), num=31)

Here, we provided the start date timestamp, end date timestamp, and the number of dates we want to create. We chose 31 to create a sequence of dates with a daily interval.

Finally, we convert the timestamp to datetime objects using the datetime.fromtimestamp() function.

date_range = [datetime.fromtimestamp(date) for date in dates]

print(date_range)

This will output:

[datetime.datetime(2021, 1, 1, 0, 0),
 datetime.datetime(2021, 1, 2, 7, 12, 54, 193548),
 datetime.datetime(2021, 1, 3, 14, 25, 48, 387096),
 datetime.datetime(2021, 1, 4, 21, 38, 42, 580645),
 datetime.datetime(2021, 1, 6, 4, 51, 36, 774194),
 datetime.datetime(2021, 1, 7, 12, 4, 30, 967742),
 datetime.datetime(2021, 1, 8, 19, 17, 25, 161290),
 datetime.datetime(2021, 1, 10, 2, 30, 19, 354838),
 datetime.datetime(2021, 1, 11, 9, 43, 13, 548387),
 datetime.datetime(2021, 1, 12, 16, 56, 7, 741935),
 datetime.datetime(2021, 1, 14, 0, 9, 1, 935483),
 datetime.datetime(2021, 1, 15, 7, 21, 56, 129032),
 datetime.datetime(2021, 1, 16, 14, 34, 50, 322580),
 datetime.datetime(2021, 1, 17, 21, 47, 44, 516129),
 datetime.datetime(2021, 1, 19, 5, 0, 39, 709677),
 datetime.datetime(2021, 1, 20, 12, 13, 33, 903225),
 datetime.datetime(2021, 1, 21, 19, 26, 28, 096774),
 datetime.datetime(2021, 1, 23, 2, 39, 22, 290322),
 datetime.datetime(2021, 1, 24, 9, 52, 16, 483871),
 datetime.datetime(2021, 1, 25, 17, 5, 10, 677419),
 datetime.datetime(2021, 1, 27, 0, 18, 5, 870967),
 datetime.datetime(2021, 1, 28, 7, 31, 0, 064516),
 datetime.datetime(2021, 1, 29, 14, 43, 54, 258064),
 datetime.datetime(2021, 1, 30, 21, 56, 48, 451613),
 datetime.datetime(2021, 2, 1, 5, 9, 42, 645161)]

Conclusion

In this article, we discussed how to use the numpy linspace function with dates in Python. By creating a start and end date, and using np.linspace with the number of dates we want to create, we can generate a sequence of dates with equal intervals.