Methods to delete the first column of a dataframe using Python
Remove first column pandas: In this article, we discuss different ways to delete the first column of a dataframe in pandas using python.
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Method 1-Using drop() method
Drop first column pandas: This is one of the methods to delete the first columns of a dataframe in pandas using pandas.drop() method is used to delete or drop specified labels from rows or columns. Let see how the drop method works.
Syntax: DataFrame.drop(self, labels=None, axis=0, index=None, columns=None, level=None, inplace=False, errors=’raise’).
As our main task is to delete columns using this method so we have to remember some points. The first point is that the column we want to delete is to be given in the columns parameter of the drop() method. The second point is that we have to assign axis value 1 if we want to work with columns. Inplace is used if we want to make changes in the existing dataframe. If inplace is true changes will be made in the existing dataframe otherwise we have to store the dataframe in another variable. Let see this with an example.
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
students = [('Raj', 24, 95) ,
('Rahul', 22,97) ,
('Aadi', 22,81) ,
('Abhay', 21,87) ,
('Ajjet', 21,74),
('Amar',22,76),
('Aman',20,76)]
# Create a DataFrame object
df = pd.DataFrame( students,
columns=['Name', 'Age','Marks'])
print("Original Dataframe\n")
print(df,'\n')
#Drop first column
df.drop(columns=df.columns[0],
axis=1,
inplace=True)
print("New Dataframe\n")
print(df)
Output
Original Dataframe Name Age Marks 0 Raj 24 95 1 Rahul 22 97 2 Aadi 22 81 3 Abhay 21 87 4 Ajjet 21 74 5 Amar 22 76 6 Aman 20 76 New Dataframe Age Marks 0 24 95 1 22 97 2 22 81 3 21 87 4 21 74 5 22 76 6 20 76
Here we see that we pass our first column by index in the drop method and the first column is successfully deleted. As we give inplace=True that’s why changes are made in the original dataframe.
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Method 2- Using del keyword
Pandas remove first column: del keyword in python is used to delete objects. Objects can be variables, lists, etc. Here we normally use del df[df.columns[0]] to delete first column in dataframe. df. columns[0] give the name of the column at index 0 which is our column 1.As we get our column name so it is very easy to delete it using the del keyword. Here point to remember that df is our dataframe name. It is not compulsory to use df as a dataframe name. We can name the dataframe as per our wish Let see this with the help of an example.
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
students = [('Raj', 24, 95) ,
('Rahul', 22,97) ,
('Aadi', 22,81) ,
('Abhay', 21,87) ,
('Ajjet', 21,74),
('Amar',22,76),
('Aman',20,76)]
# Create a DataFrame object
df = pd.DataFrame( students,
columns=['Name', 'Age','Marks'])
print("Original Dataframe\n")
print(df,'\n')
#Drop first column
del df[df.columns[0]]
print("New Dataframe\n")
print(df)
Output
Original Dataframe Name Age Marks 0 Raj 24 95 1 Rahul 22 97 2 Aadi 22 81 3 Abhay 21 87 4 Ajjet 21 74 5 Amar 22 76 6 Aman 20 76 New Dataframe Age Marks 0 24 95 1 22 97 2 22 81 3 21 87 4 21 74 5 22 76 6 20 76
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Method 3-Using pop() method
Pandas drop first column: In Pandas, the dataframe provides a function pop(column_name). It expects a column name as an argument and deletes that column from the calling dataframe object. It also returns the deleted column as a series. Let’s use this to delete the first column of the dataframe. Let see this with the help of an example.
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
students = [('Raj', 24, 95) ,
('Rahul', 22,97) ,
('Aadi', 22,81) ,
('Abhay', 21,87) ,
('Ajjet', 21,74),
('Amar',22,76),
('Aman',20,76)]
# Create a DataFrame object
df = pd.DataFrame( students,
columns=['Name', 'Age','Marks'])
print("Original Dataframe\n")
print(df,'\n')
#Drop first column
df.pop(df.columns[0])
print("New Dataframe\n")
print(df)
Output
Original Dataframe Name Age Marks 0 Raj 24 95 1 Rahul 22 97 2 Aadi 22 81 3 Abhay 21 87 4 Ajjet 21 74 5 Amar 22 76 6 Aman 20 76 New Dataframe Age Marks 0 24 95 1 22 97 2 22 81 3 21 87 4 21 74 5 22 76 6 20 76
So these are the methods to delete the first column of the dataframe in pandas using python. These methods can be used to remove some other columns also.