Deleting a column of a DataFrame without deleting the original in python

Question

I'm not sure how to explain the question so just look at the simple code.

import numpy as np
import pandas as pd

x = pd.DataFrame({"A": [1, 2], "B": [3, 4]})
y = x
del y ["A"]
print(x)
print(y)

Output

As you can see, deleting a column from y deletes it from x too, is there any way to delete the column from y without deleting it on x too?

James · Accepted Answer · 2017-04-12 21:44:51Z

3

In your example, x and y both reference the same underlying object. If you want to make a copy of x, you can use:

y = x.copy()

Example:

x = pd.DataFrame({"A": [1, 2], "B": [3, 4]})
y = x.copy()
del y["A"]
print(x)
print('-'*6)
print(y)

# returns:
   A  B
0  1  3
1  2  4
------
   B
0  3
1  4

edited Apr 12, 2017 at 21:44

answered Apr 12, 2017 at 21:35

James

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3 Comments

Fernando Chu Over a year ago

Sadly, it doesn't work, it returns: Traceback (most recent call last): File "***", line 7, in <module> del b ["A"] TypeError: 'method' object does not support item deletion

JD Long Over a year ago

in your example, @Ryunaq it works. maybe you should update your example.

Fernando Chu Over a year ago

Yep it worked, I forgot to add the parenthesis to .copy, my bad, thanks!

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