Does pandas iterrows have performance issues?

Question

I have noticed very poor performance when using iterrows from pandas.

Is this something that is experienced by others? Is it specific to iterrows and should this fun

Answer 1

Another option is to use to_records(), which is faster than both itertuples and iterrows.

But for your case, there is much room for other types of improvements.

Here's my final optimized version

def iterthrough():
    ret = []
    grouped = table2.groupby('letter', sort=False)
    t2info = table2.to_records()
    for index, letter, n1 in table1.to_records():
        t2 = t2info[grouped.groups[letter].values]
        # np.multiply is in general faster than "x * y"
        maxrow = np.multiply(t2.number2, n1).argmax()
        # `[1:]`  removes the index column
        ret.append(t2[maxrow].tolist()[1:])
    global table3
    table3 = pd.DataFrame(ret, columns=('letter', 'number2'))

---

Benchmark test:

-- iterrows() --
100 loops, best of 3: 12.7 ms per loop
  letter  number2
0      a      0.5
1      b      0.1
2      c      5.0
3      d      4.0

-- itertuple() --
100 loops, best of 3: 12.3 ms per loop

-- to_records() --
100 loops, best of 3: 7.29 ms per loop

-- Use group by --
100 loops, best of 3: 4.07 ms per loop
  letter  number2
1      a      0.5
2      b      0.1
4      c      5.0
5      d      4.0

-- Avoid multiplication --
1000 loops, best of 3: 1.39 ms per loop
  letter  number2
0      a      0.5
1      b      0.1
2      c      5.0
3      d      4.0

---

Full code:

import pandas as pd
import numpy as np

#%% Create the original tables
t1 = {'letter':['a','b','c','d'],
      'number1':[50,-10,.5,3]}

t2 = {'letter':['a','a','b','b','c','d','c'],
      'number2':[0.2,0.5,0.1,0.4,5,4,1]}

table1 = pd.DataFrame(t1)
table2 = pd.DataFrame(t2)

#%% Create the body of the new table
table3 = pd.DataFrame(np.nan, columns=['letter','number2'], index=table1.index)


print('\n-- iterrows() --')

def optimize(t2info, t1info):
    calculation = []
    for index, r in t2info.iterrows():
        calculation.append(r['number2'] * t1info)
    maxrow_in_t2 = calculation.index(max(calculation))
    return t2info.loc[maxrow_in_t2]

#%% Iterate through filtering relevant data, optimizing, returning info
def iterthrough():
    for row_index, row in table1.iterrows():   
        t2info = table2[table2.letter == row['letter']].reset_index()
        table3.iloc[row_index,:] = optimize(t2info, row['number1'])

%timeit iterthrough()
print(table3)

print('\n-- itertuple() --')
def optimize(t2info, n1):
    calculation = []
    for index, letter, n2 in t2info.itertuples():
        calculation.append(n2 * n1)
    maxrow = calculation.index(max(calculation))
    return t2info.iloc[maxrow]

def iterthrough():
    for row_index, letter, n1 in table1.itertuples():   
        t2info = table2[table2.letter == letter]
        table3.iloc[row_index,:] = optimize(t2info, n1)

%timeit iterthrough()


print('\n-- to_records() --')
def optimize(t2info, n1):
    calculation = []
    for index, letter, n2 in t2info.to_records():
        calculation.append(n2 * n1)
    maxrow = calculation.index(max(calculation))
    return t2info.iloc[maxrow]

def iterthrough():
    for row_index, letter, n1 in table1.to_records():   
        t2info = table2[table2.letter == letter]
        table3.iloc[row_index,:] = optimize(t2info, n1)

%timeit iterthrough()

print('\n-- Use group by --')

def iterthrough():
    ret = []
    grouped = table2.groupby('letter', sort=False)
    for index, letter, n1 in table1.to_records():
        t2 = table2.iloc[grouped.groups[letter]]
        calculation = t2.number2 * n1
        maxrow = calculation.argsort().iloc[-1]
        ret.append(t2.iloc[maxrow])
    global table3
    table3 = pd.DataFrame(ret)

%timeit iterthrough()
print(table3)

print('\n-- Even Faster --')
def iterthrough():
    ret = []
    grouped = table2.groupby('letter', sort=False)
    t2info = table2.to_records()
    for index, letter, n1 in table1.to_records():
        t2 = t2info[grouped.groups[letter].values]
        maxrow = np.multiply(t2.number2, n1).argmax()
        # `[1:]`  removes the index column
        ret.append(t2[maxrow].tolist()[1:])
    global table3
    table3 = pd.DataFrame(ret, columns=('letter', 'number2'))

%timeit iterthrough()
print(table3)

The final version is almost 10x faster than the original code. The strategy is:

1. Use groupby to avoid repeated comparing of values.
2. Use to_records to access raw numpy.records objects.
3. Don't operate on DataFrame until you have compiled all the data.