Extracting the first day of month of a datetime type column in pandas

Simpliest and fastest is convert to numpy array by to_numpy and then cast:

df['month'] = df['purchase_date'].to_numpy().astype('datetime64[M]')
print (df)
   user_id       purchase_date      month
0        1 2015-01-23 14:05:21 2015-01-01
1        2 2015-02-05 05:07:30 2015-02-01
2        3 2015-02-18 17:08:51 2015-02-01
3        4 2015-03-21 17:07:30 2015-03-01
4        5 2015-03-11 18:32:56 2015-03-01
5        6 2015-03-03 11:02:30 2015-03-01

Another solution with floor and pd.offsets.MonthBegin(1) and add pd.offsets.MonthEnd(0) for correct ouput if first day of month:

df['month'] = (df['purchase_date'].dt.floor('d') + 
                           pd.offsets.MonthEnd(0) - pd.offsets.MonthBegin(1))
print (df)
   user_id       purchase_date      month
0        1 2015-01-23 14:05:21 2015-01-01
1        2 2015-02-05 05:07:30 2015-02-01
2        3 2015-02-18 17:08:51 2015-02-01
3        4 2015-03-21 17:07:30 2015-03-01
4        5 2015-03-11 18:32:56 2015-03-01
5        6 2015-03-03 11:02:30 2015-03-01

---

df['month'] = ((df['purchase_date'] + pd.offsets.MonthEnd(0) - pd.offsets.MonthBegin(1))
                         .dt.floor('d'))
print (df)
   user_id       purchase_date      month
0        1 2015-01-23 14:05:21 2015-01-01
1        2 2015-02-05 05:07:30 2015-02-01
2        3 2015-02-18 17:08:51 2015-02-01
3        4 2015-03-21 17:07:30 2015-03-01
4        5 2015-03-11 18:32:56 2015-03-01
5        6 2015-03-03 11:02:30 2015-03-01

Last solution is create month period by to_period:

df['month'] = df['purchase_date'].dt.to_period('M')
print (df)
   user_id       purchase_date   month
0        1 2015-01-23 14:05:21 2015-01
1        2 2015-02-05 05:07:30 2015-02
2        3 2015-02-18 17:08:51 2015-02
3        4 2015-03-21 17:07:30 2015-03
4        5 2015-03-11 18:32:56 2015-03
5        6 2015-03-03 11:02:30 2015-03

... and then to datetimes by to_timestamp, but it is a bit slowier:

df['month'] = df['purchase_date'].dt.to_period('M').dt.to_timestamp()
print (df)
   user_id       purchase_date      month
0        1 2015-01-23 14:05:21 2015-01-01
1        2 2015-02-05 05:07:30 2015-02-01
2        3 2015-02-18 17:08:51 2015-02-01
3        4 2015-03-21 17:07:30 2015-03-01
4        5 2015-03-11 18:32:56 2015-03-01
5        6 2015-03-03 11:02:30 2015-03-01

There are many solutions, so:

Timings (in pandas 1.2.3):

rng = pd.date_range('1980-04-01 15:41:12', periods=100000, freq='20H')
df = pd.DataFrame({'purchase_date': rng})  
print (df.head())



In [70]: %timeit df['purchase_date'].to_numpy().astype('datetime64[M]')
8.6 ms ± 27.6 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)

In [71]: %timeit df['purchase_date'].dt.floor('d') + pd.offsets.MonthEnd(n=0) - pd.offsets.MonthBegin(n=1)
23 ms ± 130 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 10 loops each)

In [72]: %timeit (df['purchase_date'] + pd.offsets.MonthEnd(0) - pd.offsets.MonthBegin(1)).dt.floor('d')
23.6 ms ± 97.9 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 10 loops each)

In [73]: %timeit df['purchase_date'].dt.to_period('M')
9.25 ms ± 215 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)

In [74]: %timeit df['purchase_date'].dt.to_period('M').dt.to_timestamp()
17.6 ms ± 485 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 10 loops each)


In [76]: %timeit df['purchase_date'] + pd.offsets.MonthEnd(0) - pd.offsets.MonthBegin(normalize=True)
23.1 ms ± 116 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 10 loops each)

In [77]: %timeit df['purchase_date'].dt.normalize().map(MonthBegin().rollback)
1.66 s ± 7.16 ms per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 1 loop each)

We can use date offset in conjunction with Series.dt.normalize:

In [60]: df['month'] = df['purchase_date'].dt.normalize() - pd.offsets.MonthBegin(1)

In [61]: df
Out[61]:
   user_id       purchase_date      month
0        1 2015-01-23 14:05:21 2015-01-01
1        2 2015-02-05 05:07:30 2015-02-01
2        3 2015-02-18 17:08:51 2015-02-01
3        4 2015-03-21 17:07:30 2015-03-01
4        5 2015-03-11 18:32:56 2015-03-01
5        6 2015-03-03 11:02:30 2015-03-01

Or much nicer solution from @BradSolomon

In [95]: df['month'] = df['purchase_date'] - pd.offsets.MonthBegin(1, normalize=True)

In [96]: df
Out[96]:
   user_id       purchase_date      month
0        1 2015-01-23 14:05:21 2015-01-01
1        2 2015-02-05 05:07:30 2015-02-01
2        3 2015-02-18 17:08:51 2015-02-01
3        4 2015-03-21 17:07:30 2015-03-01
4        5 2015-03-11 18:32:56 2015-03-01
5        6 2015-03-03 11:02:30 2015-03-01