How to convert a pandas DataFrame subset of columns AND rows into a numpy array?

Question

I\'m wondering if there is a simpler, memory efficient way to select a subset of rows and columns from a pandas DataFrame.

For instance, given this dataframe:

<

Answer 1

.loc accept row and column selectors simultaneously (as do .ix/.iloc FYI) This is done in a single pass as well.

In [1]: df = DataFrame(np.random.rand(4,5), columns = list('abcde'))

In [2]: df
Out[2]: 
          a         b         c         d         e
0  0.669701  0.780497  0.955690  0.451573  0.232194
1  0.952762  0.585579  0.890801  0.643251  0.556220
2  0.900713  0.790938  0.952628  0.505775  0.582365
3  0.994205  0.330560  0.286694  0.125061  0.575153

In [5]: df.loc[df['c']>0.5,['a','d']]
Out[5]: 
          a         d
0  0.669701  0.451573
1  0.952762  0.643251
2  0.900713  0.505775

And if you want the values (though this should pass directly to sklearn as is); frames support the array interface

In [6]: df.loc[df['c']>0.5,['a','d']].values
Out[6]: 
array([[ 0.66970138,  0.45157274],
       [ 0.95276167,  0.64325143],
       [ 0.90071271,  0.50577509]])