Convert Select Columns in Pandas Dataframe to Numpy Array

Question

I would like to convert everything but the first column of a pandas dataframe into a numpy array. For some reason using the columns= parameter of DataFram

Answer 1

The columns parameter accepts a collection of column names. You're passing a list containing a dataframe with two rows:

>>> [df[1:]]
[  viz  a1_count  a1_mean  a1_std
1   n         0      NaN     NaN
2   n         2       51      50]
>>> df.as_matrix(columns=[df[1:]])
array([[ nan,  nan],
       [ nan,  nan],
       [ nan,  nan]])

Instead, pass the column names you want:

>>> df.columns[1:]
Index(['a1_count', 'a1_mean', 'a1_std'], dtype='object')
>>> df.as_matrix(columns=df.columns[1:])
array([[  3.      ,   2.      ,   0.816497],
       [  0.      ,        nan,        nan],
       [  2.      ,  51.      ,  50.      ]])