Convert mm:ss string to hh:mm:ss time format in Python

Question

Screenshot of dataframe I am working on

I want to convert the values in df['Chip Time'] column which are string obj to timedelta64.

Have tried this....> df2['Chip Time'] = pd.to_timedelta(df2['Chip Time'])

BUT GETS Error message ...> ValueError: expected hh:mm:ss format

Answer 1

You can use a regex with str.replace to add '0:' on values matching 'x:x' only:

df2['Chip Time'] = pd.to_timedelta(df2['Chip Time']
                    .str.replace('^(\d+:\d+)$', r'0:\1', regex=True)
                   )

Example output:

        Chip Time
0 0 days 00:16:48
1 0 days 01:07:51

Used input:

  Chip Time
0     16:48
1   1:07:51