Pandas column of lists, create a row for each list element

Question

I have a dataframe where some cells contain lists of multiple values. Rather than storing multiple values in a cell, I\'d like to expand the dataframe so that each item in t

Answer 1

you can also use pd.concat and pd.melt for this:

>>> objs = [df, pd.DataFrame(df['samples'].tolist())]
>>> pd.concat(objs, axis=1).drop('samples', axis=1)
   subject  trial_num     0     1     2
0        1          1 -0.49 -1.00  0.44
1        1          2 -0.28  1.48  2.01
2        1          3 -0.52 -1.84  0.02
3        2          1  1.23 -1.36 -1.06
4        2          2  0.54  0.18  0.51
5        2          3 -2.18 -0.13 -1.35
>>> pd.melt(_, var_name='sample_num', value_name='sample', 
...         value_vars=[0, 1, 2], id_vars=['subject', 'trial_num'])
    subject  trial_num sample_num  sample
0         1          1          0   -0.49
1         1          2          0   -0.28
2         1          3          0   -0.52
3         2          1          0    1.23
4         2          2          0    0.54
5         2          3          0   -2.18
6         1          1          1   -1.00
7         1          2          1    1.48
8         1          3          1   -1.84
9         2          1          1   -1.36
10        2          2          1    0.18
11        2          3          1   -0.13
12        1          1          2    0.44
13        1          2          2    2.01
14        1          3          2    0.02
15        2          1          2   -1.06
16        2          2          2    0.51
17        2          3          2   -1.35

last, if you need you can sort base on the first the first three columns.