Parsing Date Strings with to_date()

How do we convert raw string date formats into proper Spark DateType columns?

Intermediate⏱ 2 Minutes⭐ 320 XP

🤔 THE QUESTION

How do we convert raw string date formats into proper Spark DateType columns?

💡 WHAT IS IT?

to_date(col, format) parses string expressions into native DateType objects using Java SimpleDateFormat patterns.

🎯 WHAT IS IT USED FOR?

Converting raw CSV/JSON date strings to typed columns enabling date math and partition pruning.

💻 EXAMPLE

from pyspark.sql.functions import col, to_date

df = df.withColumn("order_date", to_date(col("date_str"), "yyyy-MM-dd"))

Practice typing production-grade PySpark code for Parsing Date Strings with to_date().