how to use pandas isin for multiple columns

Question

I want to find the values of col1 and col2 where the col1 and col2 of the first dataframe are

Answer 1

Perform an inner merge on col1 and col2:

import pandas as pd
df1 = pd.DataFrame({'col1': ['pizza', 'hamburger', 'hamburger', 'pizza', 'ice cream'], 'col2': ['boy', 'boy', 'girl', 'girl', 'boy']}, index=range(1,6))
df2 = pd.DataFrame({'col1': ['pizza', 'pizza', 'chicken', 'cake', 'cake', 'chicken', 'ice cream'], 'col2': ['boy', 'girl', 'girl', 'boy', 'girl', 'boy', 'boy']}, index=range(10,17))

print(pd.merge(df2.reset_index(), df1, how='inner').set_index('index'))

yields

            col1  col2
index                 
10         pizza   boy
11         pizza  girl
16     ice cream   boy

The purpose of the reset_index and set_index calls are to preserve df2's index as in the desired result you posted. If the index is not important, then

pd.merge(df2, df1, how='inner')
#         col1  col2
# 0      pizza   boy
# 1      pizza  girl
# 2  ice cream   boy

would suffice.

---

Alternatively, you could construct MultiIndexs out of the col1 and col2 columns, and then call the MultiIndex.isin method:

index1 = pd.MultiIndex.from_arrays([df1[col] for col in ['col1', 'col2']])
index2 = pd.MultiIndex.from_arrays([df2[col] for col in ['col1', 'col2']])
print(df2.loc[index2.isin(index1)])

yields

         col1  col2
10      pizza   boy
11      pizza  girl
16  ice cream   boy