Introduction

Selecting specific values of a pandas DataFrame or Series to work on is an implicit step in almost any data operation you'll run, so one of the first things you need to learn in working with data in Python is how to go about selecting the data points relevant to you quickly and effectively.

import pandas as pd
reviews = pd.read_csv("../input/wine-reviews/winemag-data-130k-v2.csv", index_col=0)
pd.set_option('display.max_rows', 5)

To start the exercise for this topic, please click here.

Native accessors

Native Python objects provide good ways of indexing data. Pandas carries all of these over, which helps make it easy to start with.

Consider this DataFrame:

reviews

	country	description	designation	points	price	province	region_1	region_2	taster_name	taster_twitter_handle	title	variety	winery
0	Italy	Aromas include tropical fruit, broom, brimston...	Vulkà Bianco	87	NaN	Sicily & Sardinia	Etna	NaN	Kerin O’Keefe	@kerinokeefe	Nicosia 2013 Vulkà Bianco (Etna)	White Blend	Nicosia
1	Portugal	This is ripe and fruity, a wine that is smooth...	Avidagos	87	15.0	Douro	NaN	NaN	Roger Voss	@vossroger	Quinta dos Avidagos 2011 Avidagos Red (Douro)	Portuguese Red	Quinta dos Avidagos
...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...
129969	France	A dry style of Pinot Gris, this is crisp with ...	NaN	90	32.0	Alsace	Alsace	NaN	Roger Voss	@vossroger	Domaine Marcel Deiss 2012 Pinot Gris (Alsace)	Pinot Gris	Domaine Marcel Deiss
129970	France	Big, rich and off-dry, this is powered by inte...	Lieu-dit Harth Cuvée Caroline	90	21.0	Alsace	Alsace	NaN	Roger Voss	@vossroger	Domaine Schoffit 2012 Lieu-dit Harth Cuvée Car...	Gewürztraminer	Domaine Schoffit

129971 rows × 13 columns

In Python, we can access the property of an object by accessing it as an attribute. A book object, for example, might have a title property, which we can access by calling book.title. Columns in a pandas DataFrame work in much the same way.

Hence to access the country property of reviews we can use:

reviews.country

0            Italy
1         Portugal
            ...   
129969      France
129970      France
Name: country, Length: 129971, dtype: object

If we have a Python dictionary, we can access its values using the indexing ([]) operator. We can do the same with columns in a DataFrame:

reviews['country']

0            Italy
1         Portugal
            ...   
129969      France
129970      France
Name: country, Length: 129971, dtype: object

These are the two ways of selecting a specific Series out of a DataFrame. Neither of them is more or less syntactically valid than the other, but the indexing operator [] does have the advantage that it can handle column names with reserved characters in them (e.g. if we had a country providence column, reviews.country providence wouldn't work).

Doesn't a pandas Series look kind of like a fancy dictionary? It pretty much is, so it's no surprise that, to drill down to a single specific value, we need only use the indexing operator [] once more:

reviews['country'][0]

'Italy'

Indexing in pandas

The indexing operator and attribute selection are nice because they work just like they do in the rest of the Python ecosystem. As a novice, this makes them easy to pick up and use. However, pandas has its own accessor operators, loc and iloc. For more advanced operations, these are the ones you're supposed to be using.

Index-based selection

Pandas indexing works in one of two paradigms. The first is index-based selection: selecting data based on its numerical position in the data. iloc follows this paradigm.

To select the first row of data in a DataFrame, we may use the following:

reviews.iloc[0]

country                                                    Italy
description    Aromas include tropical fruit, broom, brimston...
                                     ...                        
variety                                              White Blend
winery                                                   Nicosia
Name: 0, Length: 13, dtype: object

Both loc and iloc are row-first, column-second. This is the opposite of what we do in native Python, which is column-first, row-second.

This means that it's marginally easier to retrieve rows, and marginally harder to get retrieve columns. To get a column with iloc, we can do the following:

reviews.iloc[:, 0]

0            Italy
1         Portugal
            ...   
129969      France
129970      France
Name: country, Length: 129971, dtype: object

On its own, the : operator, which also comes from native Python, means "everything". When combined with other selectors, however, it can be used to indicate a range of values. For example, to select the country column from just the first, second, and third row, we would do:

reviews.iloc[:3, 0]

0       Italy
1    Portugal
2          US
Name: country, dtype: object

Or, to select just the second and third entries, we would do:

reviews.iloc[1:3, 0]

1    Portugal
2          US
Name: country, dtype: object

It's also possible to pass a list:

reviews.iloc[[0, 1, 2], 0]

0       Italy
1    Portugal
2          US
Name: country, dtype: object

Finally, it's worth knowing that negative numbers can be used in selection. This will start counting forwards from the end of the values. So for example here are the last five elements of the dataset.

reviews.iloc[-5:]

	country	description	designation	points	price	province	region_1	region_2	taster_name	taster_twitter_handle	title	variety	winery
129966	Germany	Notes of honeysuckle and cantaloupe sweeten th...	Brauneberger Juffer-Sonnenuhr Spätlese	90	28.0	Mosel	NaN	NaN	Anna Lee C. Iijima	NaN	Dr. H. Thanisch (Erben Müller-Burggraef) 2013 ...	Riesling	Dr. H. Thanisch (Erben Müller-Burggraef)
129967	US	Citation is given as much as a decade of bottl...	NaN	90	75.0	Oregon	Oregon	Oregon Other	Paul Gregutt	@paulgwine	Citation 2004 Pinot Noir (Oregon)	Pinot Noir	Citation
129968	France	Well-drained gravel soil gives this wine its c...	Kritt	90	30.0	Alsace	Alsace	NaN	Roger Voss	@vossroger	Domaine Gresser 2013 Kritt Gewurztraminer (Als...	Gewürztraminer	Domaine Gresser
129969	France	A dry style of Pinot Gris, this is crisp with ...	NaN	90	32.0	Alsace	Alsace	NaN	Roger Voss	@vossroger	Domaine Marcel Deiss 2012 Pinot Gris (Alsace)	Pinot Gris	Domaine Marcel Deiss
129970	France	Big, rich and off-dry, this is powered by inte...	Lieu-dit Harth Cuvée Caroline	90	21.0	Alsace	Alsace	NaN	Roger Voss	@vossroger	Domaine Schoffit 2012 Lieu-dit Harth Cuvée Car...	Gewürztraminer	Domaine Schoffit

Label-based selection

The second paradigm for attribute selection is the one followed by the loc operator: label-based selection. In this paradigm, it's the data index value, not its position, which matters.

For example, to get the first entry in reviews, we would now do the following:

reviews.loc[0, 'country']

'Italy'

iloc is conceptually simpler than loc because it ignores the dataset's indices. When we use iloc we treat the dataset like a big matrix (a list of lists), one that we have to index into by position. loc, by contrast, uses the information in the indices to do its work. Since your dataset usually has meaningful indices, it's usually easier to do things using loc instead. For example, here's one operation that's much easier using loc:

reviews.loc[:, ['taster_name', 'taster_twitter_handle', 'points']]

	taster_name	taster_twitter_handle	points
0	Kerin O’Keefe	@kerinokeefe	87
1	Roger Voss	@vossroger	87
...	...	...	...
129969	Roger Voss	@vossroger	90
129970	Roger Voss	@vossroger	90

129971 rows × 3 columns

Choosing between loc and iloc

When choosing or transitioning between loc and iloc, there is one "gotcha" worth keeping in mind, which is that the two methods use slightly different indexing schemes.

iloc uses the Python stdlib indexing scheme, where the first element of the range is included and the last one excluded. So 0:10 will select entries 0,...,9. loc, meanwhile, indexes inclusively. So 0:10 will select entries 0,...,10.

Why the change? Remember that loc can index any stdlib type: strings, for example. If we have a DataFrame with index values Apples, ..., Potatoes, ..., and we want to select "all the alphabetical fruit choices between Apples and Potatoes", then it's a lot more convenient to index df.loc['Apples':'Potatoes'] than it is to index something like df.loc['Apples', 'Potatoet'] (t coming after s in the alphabet).

This is particularly confusing when the DataFrame index is a simple numerical list, e.g. 0,...,1000. In this case df.iloc[0:1000] will return 1000 entries, while df.loc[0:1000] return 1001 of them! To get 1000 elements using loc, you will need to go one lower and ask for df.loc[0:999].

Otherwise, the semantics of using loc are the same as those for iloc.

Manipulating the index

Label-based selection derives its power from the labels in the index. Critically, the index we use is not immutable. We can manipulate the index in any way we see fit.

The set_index() method can be used to do the job. Here is what happens when we set_index to the title field:

reviews.set_index("title")

	country	description	designation	points	price	province	region_1	region_2	taster_name	taster_twitter_handle	variety	winery
title
Nicosia 2013 Vulkà Bianco (Etna)	Italy	Aromas include tropical fruit, broom, brimston...	Vulkà Bianco	87	NaN	Sicily & Sardinia	Etna	NaN	Kerin O’Keefe	@kerinokeefe	White Blend	Nicosia
Quinta dos Avidagos 2011 Avidagos Red (Douro)	Portugal	This is ripe and fruity, a wine that is smooth...	Avidagos	87	15.0	Douro	NaN	NaN	Roger Voss	@vossroger	Portuguese Red	Quinta dos Avidagos
...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...
Domaine Marcel Deiss 2012 Pinot Gris (Alsace)	France	A dry style of Pinot Gris, this is crisp with ...	NaN	90	32.0	Alsace	Alsace	NaN	Roger Voss	@vossroger	Pinot Gris	Domaine Marcel Deiss
Domaine Schoffit 2012 Lieu-dit Harth Cuvée Caroline Gewurztraminer (Alsace)	France	Big, rich and off-dry, this is powered by inte...	Lieu-dit Harth Cuvée Caroline	90	21.0	Alsace	Alsace	NaN	Roger Voss	@vossroger	Gewürztraminer	Domaine Schoffit

129971 rows × 12 columns

This is useful if you can come up with an index for the dataset which is better than the current one.

Conditional selection

So far we've been indexing various strides of data, using structural properties of the DataFrame itself. To do interesting things with the data, however, we often need to ask questions based on conditions.

For example, suppose that we're interested specifically in better-than-average wines produced in Italy.

We can start by checking if each wine is Italian or not:

reviews.country == 'Italy'

0          True
1         False
          ...  
129969    False
129970    False
Name: country, Length: 129971, dtype: bool

This operation produced a Series of True/False booleans based on the country of each record. This result can then be used inside of loc to select the relevant data:

reviews.loc[reviews.country == 'Italy']

	country	description	designation	points	price	province	region_1	region_2	taster_name	taster_twitter_handle	title	variety	winery
0	Italy	Aromas include tropical fruit, broom, brimston...	Vulkà Bianco	87	NaN	Sicily & Sardinia	Etna	NaN	Kerin O’Keefe	@kerinokeefe	Nicosia 2013 Vulkà Bianco (Etna)	White Blend	Nicosia
6	Italy	Here's a bright, informal red that opens with ...	Belsito	87	16.0	Sicily & Sardinia	Vittoria	NaN	Kerin O’Keefe	@kerinokeefe	Terre di Giurfo 2013 Belsito Frappato (Vittoria)	Frappato	Terre di Giurfo
...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...
129961	Italy	Intense aromas of wild cherry, baking spice, t...	NaN	90	30.0	Sicily & Sardinia	Sicilia	NaN	Kerin O’Keefe	@kerinokeefe	COS 2013 Frappato (Sicilia)	Frappato	COS
129962	Italy	Blackberry, cassis, grilled herb and toasted a...	Sàgana Tenuta San Giacomo	90	40.0	Sicily & Sardinia	Sicilia	NaN	Kerin O’Keefe	@kerinokeefe	Cusumano 2012 Sàgana Tenuta San Giacomo Nero d...	Nero d'Avola	Cusumano

19540 rows × 13 columns

This DataFrame has ~20,000 rows. The original had ~130,000. That means that around 15% of wines originate from Italy.

We also wanted to know which ones are better than average. Wines are reviewed on a 80-to-100 point scale, so this could mean wines that accrued at least 90 points.

We can use the ampersand (&) to bring the two questions together:

reviews.loc[(reviews.country == 'Italy') & (reviews.points >= 90)]

	country	description	designation	points	price	province	region_1	region_2	taster_name	taster_twitter_handle	title	variety	winery
120	Italy	Slightly backward, particularly given the vint...	Bricco Rocche Prapó	92	70.0	Piedmont	Barolo	NaN	NaN	NaN	Ceretto 2003 Bricco Rocche Prapó (Barolo)	Nebbiolo	Ceretto
130	Italy	At the first it was quite muted and subdued, b...	Bricco Rocche Brunate	91	70.0	Piedmont	Barolo	NaN	NaN	NaN	Ceretto 2003 Bricco Rocche Brunate (Barolo)	Nebbiolo	Ceretto
...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...
129961	Italy	Intense aromas of wild cherry, baking spice, t...	NaN	90	30.0	Sicily & Sardinia	Sicilia	NaN	Kerin O’Keefe	@kerinokeefe	COS 2013 Frappato (Sicilia)	Frappato	COS
129962	Italy	Blackberry, cassis, grilled herb and toasted a...	Sàgana Tenuta San Giacomo	90	40.0	Sicily & Sardinia	Sicilia	NaN	Kerin O’Keefe	@kerinokeefe	Cusumano 2012 Sàgana Tenuta San Giacomo Nero d...	Nero d'Avola	Cusumano

6648 rows × 13 columns

Suppose we'll buy any wine that's made in Italy or which is rated above average. For this we use a pipe (|):

reviews.loc[(reviews.country == 'Italy') | (reviews.points >= 90)]

	country	description	designation	points	price	province	region_1	region_2	taster_name	taster_twitter_handle	title	variety	winery
0	Italy	Aromas include tropical fruit, broom, brimston...	Vulkà Bianco	87	NaN	Sicily & Sardinia	Etna	NaN	Kerin O’Keefe	@kerinokeefe	Nicosia 2013 Vulkà Bianco (Etna)	White Blend	Nicosia
6	Italy	Here's a bright, informal red that opens with ...	Belsito	87	16.0	Sicily & Sardinia	Vittoria	NaN	Kerin O’Keefe	@kerinokeefe	Terre di Giurfo 2013 Belsito Frappato (Vittoria)	Frappato	Terre di Giurfo
...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...
129969	France	A dry style of Pinot Gris, this is crisp with ...	NaN	90	32.0	Alsace	Alsace	NaN	Roger Voss	@vossroger	Domaine Marcel Deiss 2012 Pinot Gris (Alsace)	Pinot Gris	Domaine Marcel Deiss
129970	France	Big, rich and off-dry, this is powered by inte...	Lieu-dit Harth Cuvée Caroline	90	21.0	Alsace	Alsace	NaN	Roger Voss	@vossroger	Domaine Schoffit 2012 Lieu-dit Harth Cuvée Car...	Gewürztraminer	Domaine Schoffit

61937 rows × 13 columns

Pandas comes with a few built-in conditional selectors, two of which we will highlight here.

The first is isin. isin is lets you select data whose value "is in" a list of values. For example, here's how we can use it to select wines only from Italy or France:

reviews.loc[reviews.country.isin(['Italy', 'France'])]

	country	description	designation	points	price	province	region_1	region_2	taster_name	taster_twitter_handle	title	variety	winery
0	Italy	Aromas include tropical fruit, broom, brimston...	Vulkà Bianco	87	NaN	Sicily & Sardinia	Etna	NaN	Kerin O’Keefe	@kerinokeefe	Nicosia 2013 Vulkà Bianco (Etna)	White Blend	Nicosia
6	Italy	Here's a bright, informal red that opens with ...	Belsito	87	16.0	Sicily & Sardinia	Vittoria	NaN	Kerin O’Keefe	@kerinokeefe	Terre di Giurfo 2013 Belsito Frappato (Vittoria)	Frappato	Terre di Giurfo
...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...
129969	France	A dry style of Pinot Gris, this is crisp with ...	NaN	90	32.0	Alsace	Alsace	NaN	Roger Voss	@vossroger	Domaine Marcel Deiss 2012 Pinot Gris (Alsace)	Pinot Gris	Domaine Marcel Deiss
129970	France	Big, rich and off-dry, this is powered by inte...	Lieu-dit Harth Cuvée Caroline	90	21.0	Alsace	Alsace	NaN	Roger Voss	@vossroger	Domaine Schoffit 2012 Lieu-dit Harth Cuvée Car...	Gewürztraminer	Domaine Schoffit

41633 rows × 13 columns

The second is isnull (and its companion notnull). These methods let you highlight values which are (or are not) empty (NaN). For example, to filter out wines lacking a price tag in the dataset, here's what we would do:

reviews.loc[reviews.price.notnull()]

	country	description	designation	points	price	province	region_1	region_2	taster_name	taster_twitter_handle	title	variety	winery
1	Portugal	This is ripe and fruity, a wine that is smooth...	Avidagos	87	15.0	Douro	NaN	NaN	Roger Voss	@vossroger	Quinta dos Avidagos 2011 Avidagos Red (Douro)	Portuguese Red	Quinta dos Avidagos
2	US	Tart and snappy, the flavors of lime flesh and...	NaN	87	14.0	Oregon	Willamette Valley	Willamette Valley	Paul Gregutt	@paulgwine	Rainstorm 2013 Pinot Gris (Willamette Valley)	Pinot Gris	Rainstorm
...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...
129969	France	A dry style of Pinot Gris, this is crisp with ...	NaN	90	32.0	Alsace	Alsace	NaN	Roger Voss	@vossroger	Domaine Marcel Deiss 2012 Pinot Gris (Alsace)	Pinot Gris	Domaine Marcel Deiss
129970	France	Big, rich and off-dry, this is powered by inte...	Lieu-dit Harth Cuvée Caroline	90	21.0	Alsace	Alsace	NaN	Roger Voss	@vossroger	Domaine Schoffit 2012 Lieu-dit Harth Cuvée Car...	Gewürztraminer	Domaine Schoffit

120975 rows × 13 columns

Assigning data

Going the other way, assigning data to a DataFrame is easy. You can assign either a constant value:

reviews['critic'] = 'everyone'
reviews['critic']

0         everyone
1         everyone
            ...   
129969    everyone
129970    everyone
Name: critic, Length: 129971, dtype: object

Or with an iterable of values:

reviews['index_backwards'] = range(len(reviews), 0, -1)
reviews['index_backwards']

0         129971
1         129970
           ...  
129969         2
129970         1
Name: index_backwards, Length: 129971, dtype: int64