You can use the following syntax to convert a column in a pandas DataFrame from an object to an integer:

df['object_column'] = df['int_column'].astype(str).astype(int)

The following examples show how to use this syntax in practice with the following pandas DataFrame:

import pandas as pd

#create DataFrame
df = pd.DataFrame({'player': ['A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E'],
                   'points': ['25', '27', '14', '17', '20'],
                   'assists': ['5', '7', '10', '8', '9']})

#view data types for each column
df.dtypes

player     object
points     object
assists    object
dtype: object

Example 1: Convert One Column from Object to Integer

The following code shows how to convert the points column from an object to an integer:

#convert 'points' column to integer
df['points'] = df['points'].astype(str).astype(int)

#view data types of each column
df.dtypes

player     object
points      int32
assists    object
dtype: object

We can see that the points column is now an integer, while all other columns remained unchanged.

Example 2: Convert Multiple Columns to Integer

The following code shows how to convert multiple columns in a DataFrame from an object to an integer:

#convert 'points' and 'assists' columns to integer
df[['points', 'assists']] = df[['points', 'assists']].astype(str).astype(int)

#view data types for each column
df.dtypes

player     object
points      int32
assists     int32
dtype: object

We can see that the points and assists columns have both been converted from objects to integers.

The following tutorials explain how to perform other common conversions in pandas: