How to select range of columns in a dataframe based on their name and not their indexes?

Question

In a pandas dataframe created like this:

import pandas as pd
import numpy as np

df = pd.DataFrame(np.random.randint(10, size=(6, 6)),
                  colu         


        

Answer 1

It looks like you can accomplish this with a subset:

> df <- data.frame(c1=1:6, c2=2:7, c3=3:8, c4=4:9, c5=5:10, c6=6:11)
> rownames(df) <- c('r1', 'r2', 'r3', 'r4', 'r5', 'r6')
> subset(df, select=c1:c4)
   c1 c2 c3 c4
r1  1  2  3  4
r2  2  3  4  5
r3  3  4  5  6
r4  4  5  6  7
r5  5  6  7  8
r6  6  7  8  9
> subset(df, select=c1:c2)
   c1 c2
r1  1  2
r2  2  3
r3  3  4
r4  4  5
r5  5  6
r6  6  7

If you want to subset by row name range, this hack would do:

> gRI <- function(df, rName) {which(match(rNames, rName) == 1)}
> df[gRI(df,"r2"):gRI(df,"r4"),]
   c1 c2 c3 c4 c5 c6
r2  2  3  4  5  6  7
r3  3  4  5  6  7  8
r4  4  5  6  7  8  9