How to replace text in a string column of a Pandas dataframe?
Question:
I have a column in my dataframe like this:
range
"(2,30)"
"(50,290)"
"(400,1000)"
...
and I want to replace the , comma with - dash. I’m currently using this method but nothing is changed.
org_info_exc['range'].replace(',', '-', inplace=True)
Can anybody help?
Answers:
Use the vectorised str method replace:
df['range'] = df['range'].str.replace(',','-')
df
range
0 (2-30)
1 (50-290)
EDIT: so if we look at what you tried and why it didn’t work:
df['range'].replace(',','-',inplace=True)
from the docs we see this description:
str or regex: str: string exactly matching to_replace will be replaced
with value
So because the str values do not match, no replacement occurs, compare with the following:
df = pd.DataFrame({'range':['(2,30)',',']})
df['range'].replace(',','-', inplace=True)
df['range']
0 (2,30)
1 -
Name: range, dtype: object
here we get an exact match on the second row and the replacement occurs.
For anyone else arriving here from Google search on how to do a string replacement on all columns (for example, if one has multiple columns like the OP’s ‘range’ column):
Pandas has a built in replace method available on a dataframe object.
df.replace(',', '-', regex=True)
Source: Docs
Replace all commas with underscore in the column names
data.columns= data.columns.str.replace(' ','_',regex=True)
In addition, for those looking to replace more than one character in a column, you can do it using regular expressions:
import re
chars_to_remove = ['.', '-', '(', ')', '']
regular_expression = '[' + re.escape (''. join (chars_to_remove)) + ']'
df['string_col'].str.replace(regular_expression, '', regex=True)
If you only need to replace characters in one specific column, somehow regex=True and in place=True all failed, I think this way will work:
data["column_name"] = data["column_name"].apply(lambda x: x.replace("characters_need_to_replace", "new_characters"))
lambda is more like a function that works like a for loop in this scenario.
x here represents every one of the entries in the current column.
The only thing you need to do is to change the "column_name", "characters_need_to_replace" and "new_characters".
If you want to remove two or more elements from a string, example the characters ‘$’ and ‘,’ :
Column_Name
===========
$100,000
$1,100,000
… then use:
data.Column_Name.str.replace("[$,]", "", regex=True)
=> [ 100000, 1100000 ]
Almost similar to the answer by Nancy K, this works for me:
data["column_name"] = data["column_name"].apply(lambda x: x.str.replace("characters_need_to_replace", "new_characters"))
I have a column in my dataframe like this:
range
"(2,30)"
"(50,290)"
"(400,1000)"
...
and I want to replace the , comma with - dash. I’m currently using this method but nothing is changed.
org_info_exc['range'].replace(',', '-', inplace=True)
Can anybody help?
Use the vectorised str method replace:
df['range'] = df['range'].str.replace(',','-')
df
range
0 (2-30)
1 (50-290)
EDIT: so if we look at what you tried and why it didn’t work:
df['range'].replace(',','-',inplace=True)
from the docs we see this description:
str or regex: str: string exactly matching to_replace will be replaced
with value
So because the str values do not match, no replacement occurs, compare with the following:
df = pd.DataFrame({'range':['(2,30)',',']})
df['range'].replace(',','-', inplace=True)
df['range']
0 (2,30)
1 -
Name: range, dtype: object
here we get an exact match on the second row and the replacement occurs.
For anyone else arriving here from Google search on how to do a string replacement on all columns (for example, if one has multiple columns like the OP’s ‘range’ column):
Pandas has a built in replace method available on a dataframe object.
df.replace(',', '-', regex=True)
Source: Docs
Replace all commas with underscore in the column names
data.columns= data.columns.str.replace(' ','_',regex=True)
In addition, for those looking to replace more than one character in a column, you can do it using regular expressions:
import re
chars_to_remove = ['.', '-', '(', ')', '']
regular_expression = '[' + re.escape (''. join (chars_to_remove)) + ']'
df['string_col'].str.replace(regular_expression, '', regex=True)
If you only need to replace characters in one specific column, somehow regex=True and in place=True all failed, I think this way will work:
data["column_name"] = data["column_name"].apply(lambda x: x.replace("characters_need_to_replace", "new_characters"))
lambda is more like a function that works like a for loop in this scenario.
x here represents every one of the entries in the current column.
The only thing you need to do is to change the "column_name", "characters_need_to_replace" and "new_characters".
If you want to remove two or more elements from a string, example the characters ‘$’ and ‘,’ :
Column_Name
===========
$100,000
$1,100,000
… then use:
data.Column_Name.str.replace("[$,]", "", regex=True)
=> [ 100000, 1100000 ]
Almost similar to the answer by Nancy K, this works for me:
data["column_name"] = data["column_name"].apply(lambda x: x.str.replace("characters_need_to_replace", "new_characters"))