Delete a column from a DataFrame in Python Pandas
David Y.
—The Problem
How do I delete a column from a Pandas DataFrame?
The Solution
We can do this using the DataFrame.drop method:
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import pandas # DataFrame with three columns products = pandas.DataFrame([["apple", 1, 2], ["orange", 3, 4], ["pear", 5, 6]], columns=["product", "cost_price", "sale_price"]) print(products) # Remove the sale_price column products.drop('sale_price', axis=1, inplace=True) print(products)
This code will print the products DataFrame with three columns and then with two columns. We’ve used the following arguments in our drop method call:
'sale_price'is the name of the column to remove. We could also provide a column index (e.g.2) or a list of indices or names to delete multiple columns.axis=1indicates that we should remove a column (axis=0will attempt to remove a row).inplace=Truetells the method to modify the currentproductsDataFrame rather than returning a new one with the column removed. Without this argument, we would have to reassignproductsas below:
Click to Copy
products = products.drop('sale_price', axis=1)
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