Delete column from pandas DataFrame

Question

When deleting a column in a DataFrame I use:

del df[\'column_name\']

And this works great. Why can\'t I use the following?

Answer 1

Drop by index

Delete first, second and fourth columns:

df.drop(df.columns[[0,1,3]], axis=1, inplace=True)

Delete first column:

df.drop(df.columns[[0]], axis=1, inplace=True)

There is an optional parameter inplace so that the original data can be modified without creating a copy.

Popped

Column selection, addition, deletion

Delete column column-name:

df.pop('column-name')

Examples:

df = DataFrame.from_items([('A', [1, 2, 3]), ('B', [4, 5, 6]), ('C', [7,8, 9])], orient='index', columns=['one', 'two', 'three'])

print df:

   one  two  three
A    1    2      3
B    4    5      6
C    7    8      9

df.drop(df.columns[[0]], axis=1, inplace=True) print df:

   two  three
A    2      3
B    5      6
C    8      9

three = df.pop('three') print df:

   two
A    2
B    5
C    8