pandas merge dataframes on closest timestamp

Question

I want to merge two dataframes on three columns: email, subject and timestamp. The timestamps between the dataframes differ and I therefore need to identify the closest mat

Answer 1

Notice that if you merge df1 and df2 on email and subject, then the result has all the possible relevant timestamp pairings:

In [108]: result = pd.merge(df1, df2, how='left', on=['email','subject'], suffixes=['', '_y']); result
Out[108]: 
             timestamp        email   subject         timestamp_y  clicks  var1
0  2016-07-01 10:17:00  a@gmail.com  subject3 2016-07-01 10:17:39       1     7
1  2016-07-01 10:17:00  a@gmail.com  subject3 2016-07-01 14:46:01       1     2
2  2016-07-01 02:01:02  a@gmail.com   welcome 2016-07-01 02:01:14       1     1
3  2016-07-01 14:45:04  a@gmail.com  subject3 2016-07-01 10:17:39       1     7
4  2016-07-01 14:45:04  a@gmail.com  subject3 2016-07-01 14:46:01       1     2
5  2016-07-01 08:14:02  a@gmail.com  subject2 2016-07-01 08:15:48       2     2
6  2016-07-01 16:26:35  a@gmail.com  subject4 2016-07-01 16:27:28       1     2
7  2016-07-01 10:17:00  b@gmail.com  subject3 2016-07-01 10:17:05       0     0
8  2016-07-01 10:17:00  b@gmail.com  subject3 2016-07-01 14:45:05       0     0
9  2016-07-01 02:01:02  b@gmail.com   welcome 2016-07-01 02:01:03       0     0
10 2016-07-01 14:45:04  b@gmail.com  subject3 2016-07-01 10:17:05       0     0
11 2016-07-01 14:45:04  b@gmail.com  subject3 2016-07-01 14:45:05       0     0
12 2016-07-01 08:14:02  b@gmail.com  subject2 2016-07-01 08:16:00       0     0
13 2016-07-01 16:26:35  b@gmail.com  subject4 2016-07-01 17:00:00       0     0

You could now take the absolute value of the difference in timestamps for each row:

result['diff'] = (result['timestamp_y'] - result['timestamp']).abs()

and then use

idx = result.groupby(['timestamp','email','subject'])['diff'].idxmin()
result = result.loc[idx]

to find the rows with the minimum difference for each group based on ['timestamp','email','subject'].

---

import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
from pandas.io.parsers import StringIO

a = """timestamp,email,subject
2016-07-01 10:17:00,a@gmail.com,subject3
2016-07-01 02:01:02,a@gmail.com,welcome
2016-07-01 14:45:04,a@gmail.com,subject3
2016-07-01 08:14:02,a@gmail.com,subject2
2016-07-01 16:26:35,a@gmail.com,subject4
2016-07-01 10:17:00,b@gmail.com,subject3
2016-07-01 02:01:02,b@gmail.com,welcome
2016-07-01 14:45:04,b@gmail.com,subject3
2016-07-01 08:14:02,b@gmail.com,subject2
2016-07-01 16:26:35,b@gmail.com,subject4
"""

b = """timestamp,email,subject,clicks,var1
2016-07-01 02:01:14,a@gmail.com,welcome,1,1
2016-07-01 08:15:48,a@gmail.com,subject2,2,2
2016-07-01 10:17:39,a@gmail.com,subject3,1,7
2016-07-01 14:46:01,a@gmail.com,subject3,1,2
2016-07-01 16:27:28,a@gmail.com,subject4,1,2
2016-07-01 10:17:05,b@gmail.com,subject3,0,0
2016-07-01 02:01:03,b@gmail.com,welcome,0,0
2016-07-01 14:45:05,b@gmail.com,subject3,0,0
2016-07-01 08:16:00,b@gmail.com,subject2,0,0
2016-07-01 17:00:00,b@gmail.com,subject4,0,0
"""

df1 = pd.read_csv(StringIO(a), parse_dates=['timestamp'])
df2 = pd.read_csv(StringIO(b), parse_dates=['timestamp'])

result = pd.merge(df1, df2, how='left', on=['email','subject'], suffixes=['', '_y'])
result['diff'] = (result['timestamp_y'] - result['timestamp']).abs()
idx = result.groupby(['timestamp','email','subject'])['diff'].idxmin()
result = result.loc[idx].drop(['timestamp_y','diff'], axis=1)
result = result.sort_index()
print(result)

yields

             timestamp        email   subject  clicks  var1
0  2016-07-01 10:17:00  a@gmail.com  subject3       1     7
2  2016-07-01 02:01:02  a@gmail.com   welcome       1     1
4  2016-07-01 14:45:04  a@gmail.com  subject3       1     2
5  2016-07-01 08:14:02  a@gmail.com  subject2       2     2
6  2016-07-01 16:26:35  a@gmail.com  subject4       1     2
7  2016-07-01 10:17:00  b@gmail.com  subject3       0     0
9  2016-07-01 02:01:02  b@gmail.com   welcome       0     0
11 2016-07-01 14:45:04  b@gmail.com  subject3       0     0
12 2016-07-01 08:14:02  b@gmail.com  subject2       0     0
13 2016-07-01 16:26:35  b@gmail.com  subject4       0     0