How to dynamically select columns in pandas based on input passed

Question

I have dataframe like below

df.head(2)
A B C D E F
1 1 1 3 4 5
3 4 5 2 3 1

I want to dynamically select columns based input passed .

Input

Enter number of columns?
 3

Enter  column names?
   A,E,C

Expected Output

 A  E  C
 1  4  1
 3  3  5

How can this be done in Python?

for integer based slicing use iloc : df.iloc[:,:3] for column labels use loc : df.loc[:,['A','E','C']] — anky
– anky, Commented Jan 27, 2020 at 4:18
@anky_91, I want pass the column selections as inputs to the user. — pankaj
– pankaj, Commented Jan 27, 2020 at 4:22
In that case you can split the input on comma and create a list. s="A,B,C" , then split like: s.split(',') and pass it under .loc[] as shown above. BDW you should be able to handle cases where user inputs a column which is not there in the dataframe, in such cases use df.reindex(columns=list_of_cols_after_split) — anky
– anky, Commented Jan 27, 2020 at 4:25

SherylHohman · Accepted Answer · 2020-01-27 04:35:38Z

3

You could just ask for the column names.

cols = input("Column names?")
df = df[cols]

Note: columns will need to be entered as a list e.g. ['A', 'B', 'C'].

edited Jan 27, 2020 at 4:35

SherylHohman

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answered Jan 27, 2020 at 4:23

Dance Party

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Comments

Karan Shishoo · Accepted Answer · 2020-01-27 04:31:42Z

0

Adding a slightly cleaner solution to Dance Party's (just so you don't need to input a list) you could do -

cols = input("Column names?")
cols = cols.split(', ')
df = df[cols]

This way your input can just be A,E,C and does not need to be a list

answered Jan 27, 2020 at 4:31

Karan Shishoo

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Comments

Bhosale Shrikant · Accepted Answer · 2020-01-27 04:36:21Z

0

   A  B  C  D  E  F
0  1  1  1  3  4  5
1  3  4  5  2  3  1

select = str(input("insert required cols to display (coma seperated)"))
dfx[select.split(',')]

answered Jan 27, 2020 at 4:36

Bhosale Shrikant

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1 Comment

SherylHohman Over a year ago

While this code may provide a solution to the OP's question, it's better to add context as to why/how it works. This can help future users learn, and apply that knowledge to their own code. You are also likely to have positive feedback from users in the form of upvotes, when the code is explained.

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