Rename column of dataframe from 0 to a string (rename not working)

Question:

I have a dataframe that looks like the following

index 0 feature2 feature3
0 zipcode 0.10 y z
1 latitude 0.56 y z
2 longitude 0.39 y z

I have used the following code to change the 0, the third column name to something else, but when I output the dataframe again nothing has changed and the column is still 0.

df.rename(index = {0: 'feature_rank'})
# Or alternatively
df.rename(column = {0: 'feature_rank'})

I would also like to know if it is possible to change the name of the second column to something else. Once again rename is not working for the ‘index’ column

Asked By: nic.o

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Answers:

DataFrame.rename() returns you a new dataframe with the columns renamed (this is usefull when doing method-chaining).

You want to keep the result by doing:

df = df.rename(column={0: 'feature_rank'})

Alternatively it has an argument (called inplace) that allows you to do the operation in place (so you wouldn’t need to re-assign):

df.rename(column={0: 'feature_rank'}, inplace=True)

If you want to rename multiple columns you can just add them to the dictionary, e.g.:

df = df.rename(column={0: 'feature_rank', 'feature2': 'my_new_name_for_feature2'})

Note

About using df.rename(index=...) vs. df.rename(columns=...) those would have different results. Setting the index parameter would rename the rows, setting the columns parameter would instead rename the columns.

E.g.:

df = df.rename(column={0: 'feature_rank'})
index feature_rank feature2 feature3
0 zipcode 0.10 y z
1 latitude 0.56 y z
2 longitude 0.39 y z

Instead:

df = df.rename(index={0: 'feature_rank'})
index 0 feature2 feature3
feature_rank zipcode 0.10 y z
1 latitude 0.56 y z
2 longitude 0.39 y z
Answered By: Matteo Zanoni

Hope this will work.

df.rename(columns = {‘0′:’feature_rank’}, inplace = True)

Answered By: Abhishek Kumar

You should try this:

df.rename(column={'0':'feature_rank', 'feature2': 'my_new_name_for_feature2'}, inplace=True)
Answered By: Yasser M
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