pandas: How do I split text in a column into multiple rows?

Question

I\'m working with a large csv file and the next to last column has a string of text that I want to split by a specific delimiter. I was wondering if there is a simple way to

Answer 1

import pandas as pd
import numpy as np

df = pd.DataFrame({'ItemQty': {0: 3, 1: 25}, 
                   'Seatblocks': {0: '2:218:10:4,6', 1: '1:13:36:1,12 1:13:37:1,13'}, 
                   'ItemExt': {0: 60, 1: 300}, 
                   'CustomerName': {0: 'McCartney, Paul', 1: 'Lennon, John'}, 
                   'CustNum': {0: 32363, 1: 31316}, 
                   'Item': {0: 'F04', 1: 'F01'}}, 
                    columns=['CustNum','CustomerName','ItemQty','Item','Seatblocks','ItemExt'])

print (df)
   CustNum     CustomerName  ItemQty Item                 Seatblocks  ItemExt
0    32363  McCartney, Paul        3  F04               2:218:10:4,6       60
1    31316     Lennon, John       25  F01  1:13:36:1,12 1:13:37:1,13      300

Another similar solution with chaining is use reset_index and rename:

print (df.drop('Seatblocks', axis=1)
             .join
             (
             df.Seatblocks
             .str
             .split(expand=True)
             .stack()
             .reset_index(drop=True, level=1)
             .rename('Seatblocks')           
             ))

   CustNum     CustomerName  ItemQty Item  ItemExt    Seatblocks
0    32363  McCartney, Paul        3  F04       60  2:218:10:4,6
1    31316     Lennon, John       25  F01      300  1:13:36:1,12
1    31316     Lennon, John       25  F01      300  1:13:37:1,13

---

If in column are NOT NaN values, the fastest solution is use list comprehension with DataFrame constructor:

df = pd.DataFrame(['a b c']*100000, columns=['col'])

In [141]: %timeit (pd.DataFrame(dict(zip(range(3), [df['col'].apply(lambda x : x.split(' ')[i]) for i in range(3)]))))
1 loop, best of 3: 211 ms per loop

In [142]: %timeit (pd.DataFrame(df.col.str.split().tolist()))
10 loops, best of 3: 87.8 ms per loop

In [143]: %timeit (pd.DataFrame(list(df.col.str.split())))
10 loops, best of 3: 86.1 ms per loop

In [144]: %timeit (df.col.str.split(expand=True))
10 loops, best of 3: 156 ms per loop

In [145]: %timeit (pd.DataFrame([ x.split() for x in df['col'].tolist()]))
10 loops, best of 3: 54.1 ms per loop

But if column contains NaN only works str.split with parameter expand=True which return DataFrame (documentation), and it explain why it is slowier:

df = pd.DataFrame(['a b c']*10, columns=['col'])
df.loc[0] = np.nan
print (df.head())
     col
0    NaN
1  a b c
2  a b c
3  a b c
4  a b c

print (df.col.str.split(expand=True))
     0     1     2
0  NaN  None  None
1    a     b     c
2    a     b     c
3    a     b     c
4    a     b     c
5    a     b     c
6    a     b     c
7    a     b     c
8    a     b     c
9    a     b     c