DataFrame with DateTimeIndex from Django model

Question

My goal is to create a pandas dataframe with a datetimeindex from a django model. I am using the django-pandas package for this purpose, specifically, the 'to_timeseries()' method.

First, I used the .values() method on my qs. This still returns a qs, but it contains dictionaries. I then used to_timeseries() to create my dataframe. Everything here worked as expected: the pivot, the values, etc. But my index is just a list of strings. I don't know why.

I have been able to find a great many manipulations in the pandas documentation, including how to turn a column or series into datetime objects. However, my index is not a Series, it is an Index, and none of these methods work. How do I make this happen? Thank you.

df = mclv.to_timeseries(index='day', 
                    pivot_columns='medicine',
                    values='takentoday',
                    storage='wide') 


df = df['day'].astype(Timestamp)
 raise TypeError(f"dtype '{dtype}' not understood")
TypeError: dtype '<class 'pandas._libs.tslibs.timestamps.Timestamp'>' not understood

AttributeError: 'DataFrame' object has no attribute 'DateTimeIndex'

df = pd.DatetimeIndex(df, inplace=True) 
TypeError: __new__() got an unexpected keyword argument 'inplace'

TypeError: Cannot cast DatetimeIndex to dtype

etc...

Answer 1

Correction & update: django-pandas did work as its authors expected. The problem was my misunderstanding of what it was doing, and how.