title: Pandas read_fwf difficulty interpreting a date-like string
body: <p>Pandas read_fwf difficulty interpreting a date-like string</p>
  
  <p>I'm reading several hundred fixed width files into a postgresql database parsing it using pandas read_fwf code. </p>
  
  <p>My stumbling block is trying to pull the end date from the period from the last ten columns of one of the lines.</p>
  
  <p>An example file can be found at this <a href="ftp://ftp.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/htdocs/products/analysis_monitoring/cdus/degree_days/archives/Cooling%20Degree%20Days/weekly%20degree%20days%20city/2016/Sep%2024,%202016.txt" rel="nofollow noreferrer">link</a> at the NOAA website:</p>
  
  <p>The critical code snippet from my Python/pandas script:</p>
  
  <pre><code>import os
  import time
  import requests
  import pandas as pd
  import time
  import datetime
  from dateutil.parser import *
  
  ## Load adapters
  import psycopg2
  import psycopg2.extensions
  
  df = pd.read_fwf(ddFname, header=None, )
  
  if str(df[0:1]).find('COOLING') &gt;= 0:
      amtType = 'CDD'
  elif str(df[0:1]).find('HEATING') &gt;= 0:
      amtType = 'HDD'
  
  prDate = str(df[3:4])[-10:-1]
  print(prDate)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>When I invoke the last line I get the following:</p>
  
  <pre><code>SEP 24,...
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>when I need the following:</p>
  
  <pre><code>SEP 24, 2016
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Much thanks for any and all help.</p>