Pandas: Multilevel column names

Question

pandas has support for multi-level column names:

>>>  x = pd.DataFrame({\'instance\':[\'first\',\'first\',\'first\'],\'foo\':[\'a\',\'b         


        

Answer 1

A lot of these solutions seem just a bit more complex than they need to be.

I prefer to make things look as simple and intuitive as possible when speed isn't absolutely necessary. I think this solution accomplishes that. Tested in versions of pandas as early as 0.22.0.

Simply create a DataFrame (ignore columns in the first step) and then set colums equal to your n-dim list of column names.

In [1]: import pandas as pd                                                                                                                                                                                          

In [2]: df = pd.DataFrame([[1, 1, 1, 1], [2, 2, 2, 2]])                                                                                                                                                              

In [3]: df                                                                                                                                                                                                           
Out[3]: 
   0  1  2  3
0  1  1  1  1
1  2  2  2  2

In [4]: df.columns = [['a', 'c', 'e', 'g'], ['b', 'd', 'f', 'h']]                                                                                                                                                    

In [5]: df                                                                                                                                                                                                           
Out[5]: 
   a  c  e  g
   b  d  f  h
0  1  1  1  1
1  2  2  2  2