import pandas as pd
custom_dict = {'March':0,'April':1,'Dec':3}

df = pd.DataFrame(...) # with columns April, March, Dec (probably alphabetically)

df = pd.DataFrame(df, columns=sorted(custom_dict, key=custom_dict.get))

returns a DataFrame with columns March, April, Dec

Update

use the selected answer! it’s newer than this post and is not only the official way to maintain ordered data in pandas, it’s better in every respect, including features/performance, etc. Don’t use my hacky method I describe below.

I’m only writing this update because people keep upvoting my answer, but it’s definitely worse than the accepted one 🙂

Original post

A bit late to the game, but here’s a way to create a function that sorts pandas Series, DataFrame, and multiindex DataFrame objects using arbitrary functions.

I make use of the df.iloc[index] method, which references a row in a Series/DataFrame by position (compared to df.loc, which references by value). Using this, we just have to have a function that returns a series of positional arguments:

def sort_pd(key=None,reverse=False,cmp=None):
    def sorter(series):
        series_list = list(series)
        return [series_list.index(i) 
           for i in sorted(series_list,key=key,reverse=reverse,cmp=cmp)]
    return sorter

You can use this to create custom sorting functions. This works on the dataframe used in Andy Hayden’s answer:

df = pd.DataFrame([
    [1, 2, 'March'],
    [5, 6, 'Dec'],
    [3, 4, 'April']], 
  columns=['a','b','m'])

custom_dict = {'March':0, 'April':1, 'Dec':3}
sort_by_custom_dict = sort_pd(key=custom_dict.get)

In [6]: df.iloc[sort_by_custom_dict(df['m'])]
Out[6]:
   a  b  m
0  1  2  March
2  3  4  April
1  5  6  Dec

This also works on multiindex DataFrames and Series objects:

months = ['Jan','Feb','Mar','Apr','May','Jun','Jul','Aug','Sep','Oct','Nov','Dec']

df = pd.DataFrame([
    ['New York','Mar',12714],
    ['New York','Apr',89238],
    ['Atlanta','Jan',8161],
    ['Atlanta','Sep',5885],
  ],columns=['location','month','sales']).set_index(['location','month'])

sort_by_month = sort_pd(key=months.index)

In [10]: df.iloc[sort_by_month(df.index.get_level_values('month'))]
Out[10]:
                 sales
location  month  
Atlanta   Jan    8161
New York  Mar    12714
          Apr    89238
Atlanta   Sep    5885

sort_by_last_digit = sort_pd(key=lambda x: x%10)

In [12]: pd.Series(list(df['sales'])).iloc[sort_by_last_digit(df['sales'])]
Out[12]:
2    8161
0   12714
3    5885
1   89238

To me this feels clean, but it uses python operations heavily rather than relying on optimized pandas operations. I haven’t done any stress testing but I’d imagine this could get slow on very large DataFrames. Not sure how the performance compares to adding, sorting, then deleting a column. Any tips on speeding up the code would be appreciated!

pandas >= 1.1

You will soon be able to use sort_values with key argument:

pd.__version__
# '1.1.0.dev0+2004.g8d10bfb6f'

custom_dict = {'March': 0, 'April': 1, 'Dec': 3} 
df

   a  b      m
0  1  2  March
1  5  6    Dec
2  3  4  April

df.sort_values(by=['m'], key=lambda x: x.map(custom_dict))

   a  b      m
0  1  2  March
2  3  4  April
1  5  6    Dec

The key argument takes as input a Series and returns a Series. This series is internally argsorted and the sorted indices are used to reorder the input DataFrame. If there are multiple columns to sort on, the key function will be applied to each one in turn. See Sorting with keys.

---

pandas <= 1.0.X

One simple method is using the output Series.map and Series.argsort to index into df using DataFrame.iloc (since argsort produces sorted integer positions); since you have a dictionary; this becomes easy.

df.iloc[df['m'].map(custom_dict).argsort()]

   a  b      m
0  1  2  March
2  3  4  April
1  5  6    Dec

If you need to sort in descending order, invert the mapping.

df.iloc[(-df['m'].map(custom_dict)).argsort()]

   a  b      m
1  5  6    Dec
2  3  4  April
0  1  2  March

Note that this only works on numeric items. Otherwise, you will need to workaround this using sort_values, and accessing the index:

df.loc[df['m'].map(custom_dict).sort_values(ascending=False).index]

   a  b      m
1  5  6    Dec
2  3  4  April
0  1  2  March

More options are available with astype (this is deprecated now), or pd.Categorical, but you need to specify ordered=True for it to work correctly.

# Older version,
# df['m'].astype('category', 
#                categories=sorted(custom_dict, key=custom_dict.get), 
#                ordered=True)
df['m'] = pd.Categorical(df['m'], 
                         categories=sorted(custom_dict, key=custom_dict.get), 
                         ordered=True)

Now, a simple sort_values call will do the trick:

df.sort_values('m')
 
   a  b      m
0  1  2  March
2  3  4  April
1  5  6    Dec

The categorical ordering will also be honoured when groupby sorts the output.

I had the same task but with an addition to sort on multiple columns.

One of the solutions is to make both columns pd.Categorical and pass the expected order as an argument "categories".

But I had some requirements where I cannot coerce unknownunexpected values and unfortunately that is what pd.Categorical is doing. Also None is not supported as a category and coerced automatically.

So my solution was to use a key to sort on multiple columns with a custom sorting order:

import pandas as pd


df = pd.DataFrame([
    [A2, 2],
    [B1, 1],
    [A1, 2],
    [A2, 1],
    [B1, 2],
    [A1, 1]], 
  columns=['one','two'])


def custom_sorting(col: pd.Series) -> pd.Series:
    """Series is input and ordered series is expected as output"""
    to_ret = col
    # apply custom sorting only to column one:
    if col.name == "one":
        custom_dict = {}
        # for example ensure that A2 is first, pass items in sorted order here:
        def custom_sort(value):
            return (value[0], int(value[1:]))

        ordered_items = list(col.unique())
        ordered_items.sort(key=custom_sort)
        # apply custom order first:
        for index, item in enumerate(ordered_items):
            custom_dict[item] = index
        to_ret = col.map(custom_dict)
    # default text sorting is about to be applied
    return to_ret


# pass two columns to be sorted
df.sort_values(
    by=["two", "one"],
    ascending=True,
    inplace=True,
    key=custom_sorting,
)

print(df)

Output:

5  A1    1
3  A2    1
1  B1    1
2  A1    2
0  A2    2
4  B1    2

Be aware that this solution can be slow.