How to check if a column exists in Pandas

Question

Is there a way to check if a column exists in a Pandas DataFrame?

Suppose that I have the following DataFrame:

>>> import pandas as pd
>&         


        

Answer 1

Just to suggest another way without using if statements, you can use the get() method for DataFrames. For performing the sum based on the question:

df['sum'] = df.get('A', df['B']) + df['C']

The DataFrame get method has similar behavior as python dictionaries.