Remove certain string from entire column in pandas dataframe

Question

I have a pandas dataframe df with the contents below:

  Date          Factor       Expiry         Grade  
0 12/31/1991    2.138766     3/30/1992      -3.33% 
1 10/29/1992    2.031381     2/8/1993       -1.06% 
2 5/20/1993     2.075670     6/4/1993       -6.38%

I would like the remove the % character from all the rows in the Grade column. The result should look like this:

  Date          Factor     Expiry        Grade  
0 12/31/1991    2.138766   3/30/1992     -3.33 
1 10/29/1992    2.031381   2/8/1993      -1.06 
2 5/20/1993     2.075670   6/4/1993      -6.38

I am using Python v3.6.

Shaido · Accepted Answer · 2018-08-10 03:28:09Z

24

Using str.replace would work:

df['Grade'] = df['Grade'].str.replace('%', '')

answered Aug 10, 2018 at 3:28

Shaido

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jpp · Accepted Answer · 2018-08-10 03:53:35Z

7

You can use string slicing and then convert to a numeric type via pd.to_numeric:

df['Grade'] = pd.to_numeric(df['Grade'].astype(str).str[:-1], errors='coerce')

Conversion to float is recommended as a series of strings will be held in a generic and inefficient object dtype, while numeric types permit vectorised operations.

edited Aug 10, 2018 at 3:53

answered Aug 10, 2018 at 3:31

jpp

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2 Comments

user3848207 Over a year ago

Thanks for the answer. Upvoted because I like the idea of converting to float. When I use your answer, I get the error AttributeError: Can only use .str accessor with string values, which use np.object_ dtype in pandas. I have no problem when I use df['Grade'] = df['Grade'].str.replace('%', '').

jpp Over a year ago

@user3848207, Sure, you can convert to str in that case [as per my update].

U13-Forward · Accepted Answer · 2018-08-10 03:33:44Z

5

Why not str.rstrip():

df['Grade'] = df['Grade'].str.rstrip('%')

answered Aug 10, 2018 at 3:33

U13-Forward

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Comments

rafaelc · Accepted Answer · 2018-08-10 03:36:24Z

2

So long as we are giving alternatives, can also translate

df.Grade.str.translate(str.maketrans({'%':''})).astype(float)

answered Aug 10, 2018 at 3:36

rafaelc

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2 Comments

BruceWayne Over a year ago

What would a practical difference be between translate and replace?

rafaelc Over a year ago

@BruceWayne I believe this question has answers more complete than I could post in a comment here ;)

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