3 Easy Tricks to Create New Columns in Python Pandas

Use lambda Function with apply() method

The most common way of creating a new column is by doing some operation on the existing column.

Often we need to perform a complex calculation on the existing column and create a new column with the calculated values.

pandas.DataFrame.apply() is the solution

For example, let’s create a column Shipment_Size based on the column Quantity in the dataset. The values in this new column should be Small, Medium, and Large depending on the values in the column Quantity.

We can start with creating a simple function as below.

def shipsize(row):  
    if row['Quantity'] > 0 and row['Quantity'] <= 30:
        return 'Small'
    elif row['Quantity'] > 30 and row['Quantity'] <= 60:
        return 'Medium'
    elif row['Quantity'] > 60  and row['Quantity'] <= 100:
        return 'Large'
    return 'NotDefined'

However, in real-life scenarios, this function can be much more complex.

Then, the new column can be easily created as below

df['Shipment_Size'] = df.apply(lambda row: shipsize(row), axis=1)

Putting all steps together, finally, we can see an extra column is added to df .

Use Lambda function with apply() to create new column | Image by Author

There are many debates about whether to use or not to use the .apply() method. Here is an interesting discussion about it on stackoverflow.

Also, if you are interested in knowing how pandas.DataFrame.apply() works, then I recommend this in-depth article about it.

Use NumPy.select() method

Much better and faster performance can be obtained by using the select() method in NumPy.

.select() is 155X faster ⚡ than .apply()

It has a simple syntax, select(condlist, choicelist) . And it returns an array drawn from elements in choicelist, depending on the condition in condlist.

For example, let’s create a column Shipment_Size based on the column Quantity in the dataset. But this time using thenumpy.select() method.

Let’s start with creating a list of conditions condlist and list of choices choicelist as below.

condlist and choicelist for numpy.select() | Image by Author

Then, creating a new column is just a one-liner.

Create a new column using numpy.select() | Image by Author

As numpy.select() returns an array of data type numpy.ndarray , it should be converted in pandas series using pd.Series to make a new column.

The official documentation of numpy.select() can be found here.

Use Pandas.DataFrame.loc() method

Lastly, we can also use the .loc() method in Pandas DataFrame to create a new column.

This method is quite straightforward and self-explanatory as compared to .apply() and .select() .

The syntax is quite simple and straightforward.

Dataframe_name.loc[condition, new_column_name] = new_column_value

The new_column_value is the value assigned in the new column if the condition in .loc() is True.

For example, let’s create the column Shipment_Size one last time, in this case using .loc() as shown below

Creating new column using pandas.DataFrame.loc() | Image by Author

Although, it is slower than numpy.select(), it is still 50 times faster than pandas.DataFrame.apply().

The more details, I recommend reading the interesting article here.

Here is the Notebook with all examples.