Represent negative timedelta in most basic form - pandas

Question

If I create a negative Timedelta for e.g. 0.5 hours, the internal representation looks as follow:
In [2]: pd.Timedelta('-0.5h')
Out[2]: Timedelta('-1 days +23:30:00')
How can I get back a (str) representation of this Timedelta in the form -00:30?
I want to display these deltas and requiring the user to calculate the expression -1 day + something is a bit award.

Answer 1

I can't add comment to you so adding it here. Don't know if this helps but I think you can use python humanize.
import humanize as hm
hm.naturaltime((pd.Timedelta('-0.5h')))
Out:
'30 minutes from now'

Answer 2

Ok, I will live with a hack going trough a date:
sign = ''
date = pd.to_datetime('today')
if delta.total_seconds() < 0:
sign = '-'
date = date - delta
else:
date = date + delta
print '{}{:%H:%M}'.format(sign, date.to_pydatetime())

Answer 3

You can use the components of a Pandas timedelta
import pandas as pd
t = pd.Timedelta('-0.5h')
print t.components
>> Components(days=-1L, hours=23L, minutes=30L, seconds=0L, milliseconds=0L, microseconds=0L, nanoseconds=0L)
You can access each component with
print t.components.days
>> -1
print t.components.hours
>> 23
print t.components.minutes
>> 30
The rest is then formatting.
source
This is a total hack that won't work for Series data, but....
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
t = pd.Timedelta('-0.5h').components
mins = t.days*24*60 + t.hours*60 + t.minutes
print str(np.sign(mins))[0]+str(divmod(abs(mins), 60)[0]).zfill(2)+':'+str(divmod(abs(mins), 60)[1]).zfill(2)
>> -00:30

Answer 4

I was looking for something similar (see https://github.com/pandas-dev/pandas/issues/17232 )
I'm not sure if it will be implemented in Pandas, so here is a workaround
import pandas as pd
def timedelta2str(td, display_plus=False, format=None):
"""
Parameters
----------
format : None|all|even_day|sub_day|long
Returns
-------
converted : string of a Timedelta
>>> td = pd.Timedelta('00:00:00.000')
>>> timedelta2str(td)
'0 days'
>>> td = pd.Timedelta('00:01:29.123')
>>> timedelta2str(td, display_plus=True, format='sub_day')
'+ 00:01:29.123000'
>>> td = pd.Timedelta('-00:01:29.123')
>>> timedelta2str(td, display_plus=True, format='sub_day')
'- 00:01:29.123000'
"""
td_zero = pd.Timedelta(0)
sign_sep = ' '
if td >= td_zero:
s = td._repr_base(format=format)
if display_plus:
s = "+" + sign_sep + s
return s
else:
s = timedelta2str(-td, display_plus=False, format=format)
s = "-" + sign_sep + s
return s
if __name__ == "__main__":
import doctest
doctest.testmod()