Check if dataframe column is Categorical

Question

I can\'t seem to get a simple dtype check working with Pandas\' improved Categoricals in v0.15+. Basically I just want something like is_categorical(column) -> True

Answer 1

Use the name property to do the comparison instead, it should always work because it's just a string:

>>> import numpy as np
>>> arr = np.array([1, 2, 3, 4])
>>> arr.dtype.name
'int64'

>>> import pandas as pd
>>> cat = pd.Categorical(['a', 'b', 'c'])
>>> cat.dtype.name
'category'

So, to sum up, you can end up with a simple, straightforward function:

def is_categorical(array_like):
    return array_like.dtype.name == 'category'