Pandas: Reading Excel with merged cells

Question

I have Excel files with multiple sheets, each of which looks a little like this (but much longer):

        Sample  CD4     CD8
Day 1   8311    17.3    6.44
          


        

Answer 1

You could use the Series.fillna method to forword-fill in the NaN values:

df.index = pd.Series(df.index).fillna(method='ffill')

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For example,

In [42]: df
Out[42]: 
       Sample    CD4   CD8
Day 1    8311  17.30  6.44
NaN      8312  13.60  3.50
NaN      8321  19.80  5.88
NaN      8322  13.50  4.09
Day 2    8311  16.00  4.92
NaN      8312   5.67  2.28
NaN      8321  13.00  4.34
NaN      8322  10.60  1.95

[8 rows x 3 columns]

In [43]: df.index = pd.Series(df.index).fillna(method='ffill')

In [44]: df
Out[44]: 
       Sample    CD4   CD8
Day 1    8311  17.30  6.44
Day 1    8312  13.60  3.50
Day 1    8321  19.80  5.88
Day 1    8322  13.50  4.09
Day 2    8311  16.00  4.92
Day 2    8312   5.67  2.28
Day 2    8321  13.00  4.34
Day 2    8322  10.60  1.95

[8 rows x 3 columns]

Answer 2

df = df.fillna(method='ffill', axis=0)  # resolved updating the missing row entries