Time Difference between Time Period and Instant - pandas

Question

I have some time periods (df_A) and some time instants (df_B):
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
import datetime as dt
from datetime import timedelta
# Data
df_A = pd.DataFrame({'A1': [dt.datetime(2017,1,5,9,8), dt.datetime(2017,1,5,9,9), dt.datetime(2017,1,7,9,19), dt.datetime(2017,1,7,9,19), dt.datetime(2017,1,7,9,19), dt.datetime(2017,2,7,9,19), dt.datetime(2017,2,7,9,19)],
'A2': [dt.datetime(2017,1,5,9,9), dt.datetime(2017,1,5,9,12), dt.datetime(2017,1,7,9,26), dt.datetime(2017,1,7,9,20), dt.datetime(2017,1,7,9,21), dt.datetime(2017,2,7,9,23), dt.datetime(2017,2,7,9,25)]})
df_B = pd.DataFrame({ 'B': [dt.datetime(2017,1,6,14,45), dt.datetime(2017,1,4,3,31), dt.datetime(2017,1,7,3,31), dt.datetime(2017,1,7,14,57), dt.datetime(2017,1,9,14,57)]})
I can match these together:
# Define an Extra Margin
M = dt.timedelta(days = 10)
df_A["A1X"] = df_A["A1"] + M
df_A["A2X"] = df_A["A2"] - M
# Match
Bv = df_B .B .values
A1 = df_A .A1X.values
A2 = df_A .A2X.values
i, j = np.where((Bv[:, None] >= A1) & (Bv[:, None] <= A2))
df_C = pd.DataFrame(np.column_stack([df_B .values[i], df_A .values[j]]),
columns = df_B .columns .append (df_A.columns))
I would like to find the time difference between each time period and the time instant matched to it. I mean that
if B is between A1 and A2
then dT = 0
I've tried doing it like this:
# Calculate dt
def time(A1,A2,B):
if df_C["B"] < df_C["A1"]:
return df_C["A1"].subtract(df_C["B"])
elif df_C["B"] > df_C["A2"]:
return df_C["B"].subtract(df_C["A2"])
else:
return 0
df_C['dt'] = df_C.apply(time)
I'm getting "ValueError: Cannot set a frame with no defined index and a value that cannot be converted to a Series"

Answer 1

So, I found two fixes:
You are adding M to the lower value and subtracting from the higher one. Change it to:
df_A['A1X'] = df_A['A1'] - M
df_A['A2X'] = df_A['A2'] + M
You are only passing one row of your dataframe at a time to your time function, so it should be something like:
def time(row):
if row['B'] < row['A1']:
return row['A1'] - row['B']
elif row['B'] > row['A2']:
return row['B'] - row['A2']
else:
return 0
And then you can call it like this:
df_C['dt'] = df_C.apply(time, axis=1) :)