dt.floor count for every 12 hours in Pandas - pandas

Question

I am trying to count the datetime occurrences every 12 hours as follows using dt.floor.
Here I created a data frame contains 2 days with 1-hour intervals. I have two questions regarding the output.
I am expecting the summary would be for every 12 hours i.e, first-row in the output1 should be 12:00 and second row would be 24:00. Instead, I get 00:00 and 12:00. Why is this?
Is it possible to create a summary using a specific time? for example, count every 6 Am and 6 PM?
code and input
input1 = pd.DataFrame(pd.date_range('1/1/2018 00:00:00', periods=48, freq='H'))
input1.columns = ["datetime"]
input1.groupby(input1['datetime'].dt.floor('12H')).count()
output-1
datetime
datetime
2018-01-01 00:00:00 12
2018-01-01 12:00:00 12
2018-01-02 00:00:00 12
2018-01-02 12:00:00 12
output-2
datetime
datetime
2018-01-01 06:00:00 6
2018-01-01 18:00:00 12
2018-01-02 06:00:00 12
2018-01-02 18:00:00 6

Answer 1

There is no 24th hour. The time part of a datetime in pandas exists in the range [00:00:00, 24:00:00), which ensures that there's only ever a single representation of the same exact time. (Notice the closure).
import pandas as pd
pd.to_datetime('2012-01-01 24:00:00')
#ParserError: hour must be in 0..23: 2012-01-01 24:00:00
For the second point as of pd.__version__ == '1.1.0' you can specify the offset parameter when you resample. You can also specify which side should be used for the labels. For older versions you will need to use the base argument.
# pandas < 1.1.0
#input1.resample('12H', on='datetime', base=6).count()
input1.resample('12H', on='datetime', offset='6H').count()
# datetime
#datetime
#2017-12-31 18:00:00 6
#2018-01-01 06:00:00 12
#2018-01-01 18:00:00 12
#2018-01-02 06:00:00 12
#2018-01-02 18:00:00 6
# Change labels
input1.resample('12H', on='datetime', offset='6H', label='right').count()
# datetime
#datetime
#2018-01-01 06:00:00 6
#2018-01-01 18:00:00 12
#2018-01-02 06:00:00 12
#2018-01-02 18:00:00 12
#2018-01-03 06:00:00 6

Answer 2

I modified your input data slightly, in order to use resample:
import pandas as pd
input1 = pd.DataFrame(pd.date_range('1/1/2018 00:00:00', periods=48, freq='H'))
input1.columns = ["datetime"]
# add a dummy column
input1['x'] = 'x'
# convert datetime to index...
input1 = input1.set_index('datetime')
# ...so we can use resample, and loffset lets us start at 6 am
t = input1.resample('12h', loffset=pd.Timedelta(hours=6)).count()
# show results
print(t.head())
x
datetime
2018-01-01 06:00:00 12
2018-01-01 18:00:00 12
2018-01-02 06:00:00 12
2018-01-02 18:00:00 12