P28Data CleaningIntermediateImplement14 min

Clean Mixed Date Formats

Parse a column containing multiple date formats without silently swapping day and month.

#dates#parsing#data-quality

Scenario

A vendor export mixes 2026-03-04, 04/03/2026, and invalid text in one signup_date column.

Problem statement

Design a parsing and validation workflow that makes ambiguity visible.

Your Task

  1. Preserve the raw value.
  2. Parse with explicit rules where the source format is known.
  3. Measure parsing failures and investigate ambiguous records.

Related Concepts

Datetime parsingSource systemsData audits

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