Best Python Pandas Guides to Buy in October 2025
Python for Data Analysis: Data Wrangling with pandas, NumPy, and Jupyter
Pandas Cookbook: Practical recipes for scientific computing, time series, and exploratory data analysis using Python
Effective Pandas: Patterns for Data Manipulation (Treading on Python)
Pandas for Everyone: Python Data Analysis (Addison-Wesley Data & Analytics Series)
Pandas Workout: 200 exercises to make you a stronger data analyst
Hands-On Data Analysis with Pandas: A Python data science handbook for data collection, wrangling, analysis, and visualization
Pandas in Action
To apply a function to specific columns in pandas, you can use the apply() method along with the axis parameter to specify whether you want to apply the function row-wise or column-wise. To apply a function to specific columns, you can use the apply() method along with the subset parameter to specify the columns you want to apply the function to. Additionally, you can use lambda functions to apply custom functions to specific columns in pandas. Overall, by using these techniques, you can easily apply a function to specific columns in pandas to manipulate and analyze your data efficiently.
How to apply a function to both numeric and categorical columns separately in pandas?
You can achieve this by using the .apply() method along with the .select_dtypes() method in pandas. Here is an example of how to apply a function separately to numeric and categorical columns in a DataFrame:
import pandas as pd
Sample DataFrame
data = {'A': [1, 2, 3, 4], 'B': ['foo', 'bar', 'foo', 'bar'], 'C': [5, 6, 7, 8]} df = pd.DataFrame(data)
Define a function to apply
def square(x): return x**2
Apply the function to numeric columns
numeric_cols = df.select_dtypes(include='number').columns df[numeric_cols] = df[numeric_cols].apply(square)
Apply the function to categorical columns
categorical_cols = df.select_dtypes(exclude='number').columns df[categorical_cols] = df[categorical_cols].apply(lambda x: x.str.upper())
print(df)
In this example, the square function is applied to numeric columns to square the values, and a lambda function is applied to uppercase the values in categorical columns. You can replace these functions with any custom function you want to apply to the columns.
How to apply a function to specific columns in pandas using lambda functions?
You can apply a function to specific columns in a pandas DataFrame using lambda functions by using the apply method along with the axis parameter to specify whether the function should be applied column-wise or row-wise.
Here's an example:
import pandas as pd
Create a sample DataFrame
data = { 'A': [1, 2, 3, 4], 'B': [5, 6, 7, 8], 'C': [9, 10, 11, 12] } df = pd.DataFrame(data)
Define a lambda function to apply to specific columns
func = lambda x: x * 2 if x.name in ['A', 'B'] else x
Apply the function to specific columns using the apply method
df_updated = df.apply(func, axis=0)
print(df_updated)
In this example, the lambda function func doubles the values in columns 'A' and 'B'. By specifying axis=0, the function is applied column-wise to the DataFrame. The resulting DataFrame df_updated will have the values in columns 'A' and 'B' doubled.
How to apply a function to specific columns in pandas with parallel processing?
To apply a function to specific columns in a pandas DataFrame with parallel processing, you can use the apply method along with the multiprocessing module. Here is an example to demonstrate how to achieve this:
import pandas as pd from multiprocessing import Pool
Sample data
data = {'A': [1, 2, 3, 4], 'B': [10, 20, 30, 40], 'C': [100, 200, 300, 400]} df = pd.DataFrame(data)
Function to be applied to specific columns
def custom_function(column): return column * 2
Specify the columns to apply the function to
columns_to_process = ['B', 'C']
Create a pool of workers for parallel processing
pool = Pool()
Apply the custom function to specified columns in parallel
results = pool.map(custom_function, [df[col] for col in columns_to_process])
Update the DataFrame with the processed data
for i, col in enumerate(columns_to_process): df[col] = results[i]
Close the pool of workers
pool.close() pool.join()
print(df)
In this example, we define a custom function custom_function that multiplies the input by 2. We then specify the columns B and C that we want to apply this function to. We create a pool of workers using the Pool class from the multiprocessing module and use the map method to apply the function to the specified columns in parallel.
Finally, we update the original DataFrame with the processed data and close the pool of workers. The result will be a DataFrame with the specified columns processed in parallel.