Moving a column in a pandas dataframe

Question

I have the following framework:

   a  b   x  y
0  1  2   3 -1
1  2  4   6 -2
2  3  6   9 -3
3  4  8  12 -4

How can I move the columns b and x so that they are the last 2 columns in the dataframe? I would like to specify b and x by name, but not other columns.

Answer 1

You can reorder columns by specifying their order:

df = df[['a', 'y', 'b', 'x']]

In the case of large data frames where the column headings are dynamic, you can use list comprehension to select each column not in your target set, and then add the final set to the end.

>>> df[[c for c in df if c not in ['b', 'x']] 
       + ['b', 'x']]
   a  y  b   x
0  1 -1  2   3
1  2 -2  4   6
2  3 -3  6   9
3  4 -4  8  12

To make it more bulletproof, you can make sure that the target columns are indeed in the data frame:

cols_at_end = ['b', 'x']
df = df[[c for c in df if c not in cols_at_end] 
        + [c for c in cols_at_end if c in df]]

Answer 2

cols = list(df.columns.values) #Make a list of all of the columns in the df
cols.pop(cols.index('b')) #Remove b from list
cols.pop(cols.index('x')) #Remove x from list
df = df[cols+['b','x']] #Create new dataframe with columns in the order you want

Answer 3

. , , .

df1 = df.pop('b') # remove column b and store it in df1
df2 = df.pop('x') # remove column x and store it in df2
df['b']=df1 # add b series as a 'new' column.
df['x']=df2 # add b series as a 'new' column.

"b" "x" . OSPY: https://youtu.be/RlbO27N3Xg4

Answer 4

pd.Index.difference np.hstack, reindex . , , NumPy/Pandas.

cols_to_move = ['b', 'x']
new_cols = np.hstack((df.columns.difference(cols_to_move), cols_to_move))

# OPTION 1: reindex
df = df.reindex(columns=new_cols)

# OPTION 2: direct label-based indexing
df = df[new_cols]

# OPTION 3: loc label-based indexing
df = df.loc[:, new_cols]

print(df)

#    a  y  b   x
# 0  1 -1  2   3
# 1  2 -2  4   6
# 2  3 -3  6   9
# 3  4 -4  8  12

Answer 5

. :

def reorder_columns(columns, first_cols=[], last_cols=[], drop_cols=[]):
    columns = list(set(columns) - set(first_cols))
    columns = list(set(columns) - set(drop_cols))
    columns = list(set(columns) - set(last_cols))
    new_order = first_cols + columns + last_cols
    return new_order

:

my_list = ['first', 'second', 'third', 'fourth', 'fifth', 'sixth']
reorder_columns(my_list, first_cols=['fourth', 'third'], last_cols=['second'], drop_cols=['fifth'])

# Output:
['fourth', 'third', 'first', 'sixth', 'second']

, :

my_list = df.columns.tolist()
reordered_cols = reorder_columns(my_list, first_cols=['fourth', 'third'], last_cols=['second'], drop_cols=['fifth'])
df = df[reordered_cols]

Answer 6

:

df.drop(columns=['b', 'x']).assign(b=df['b'], x=df['x'])

Answer 7

An alternative, more general method;

from pandas import DataFrame


def move_columns(df: DataFrame, cols_to_move: list, new_index: int) -> DataFrame:
    """
    This method re-arranges the columns in a dataframe to place the desired columns at the desired index.
    ex Usage: df = move_columns(df, ['Rev'], 2)   
    :param df:
    :param cols_to_move: The names of the columns to move. They must be a list
    :param new_index: The 0-based location to place the columns.
    :return: Return a dataframe with the columns re-arranged
    """
    other = [c for c in df if c not in cols_to_move]
    start = other[0:new_index]
    end = other[new_index:]
    return df[start + cols_to_move + end]