How do you replace values in a Pandas DataFrame? (With Examples)

To replace values in a Pandas DataFrame, you can use the DataFrame.replace() method. This method takes in a value to replace, and a replacement value, and returns a copy of the DataFrame with all the values replaced. For example, if you wanted to replace all the 3’s in a DataFrame with 5’s, you could use the code df.replace(3, 5) to do so. The changes would be saved to the new DataFrame, and the original DataFrame would remain unchanged.


Often you may want to replace the values in one or more columns of a pandas DataFrame.

Fortunately this is easy to do using the .replace() function.

This tutorial provides several examples of how to use this function in practice on the following DataFrame:

import pandas as pd

#create DataFrame
df = pd.DataFrame({'team': ['A', 'A', 'B', 'B', 'B', 'C', 'C'],
                   'division':['E', 'W', 'E', 'E', 'W', 'W', 'E'],
                   'rebounds': [11, 8, 7, 6, 6, 5, 12]})

#view DataFrame
print(df)

  team division  rebounds
0    A        E        11
1    A        W         8
2    B        E         7
3    B        E         6
4    B        W         6
5    C        W         5
6    C        E        12

Example 1: Replace a Single Value in an Entire DataFrame

The following code shows how to replace a single value in an entire pandas DataFrame:

#replace 'E' with 'East'
df = df.replace(['E'],'East')

#view DataFrame
print(df)

  team division  rebounds
0    A     East        11
1    A        W         8
2    B     East         7
3    B     East         6
4    B        W         6
5    C        W         5
6    C     East        12

Example 2: Replace Multiple Values in an Entire DataFrame

The following code shows how to replace multiple values in an entire pandas DataFrame:

#replace 'E' with 'East' and 'W' with 'West'
df = df.replace(['E', 'W'],['East', 'West'])

#view DataFrame
print(df)

        team	division  rebounds
0	A	East	  11
1	A	West	  8
2	B	East	  7
3	B	East	  6
4	B	West	  6
5	C	West	  5
6	C	East	  12

Example 3: Replace a Single Value in a Single Column

The following code shows how to replace a single value in a single column:

#replace 6 with 0 in rebounds column
df['rebounds'] = df['rebounds'].replace(6, 0)

#view DataFrame
print(df)

        team	division  rebounds
0	A	E	  11
1	A	W	  8
2	B	E	  7
3	B	E	  0
4	B	W	  0
5	C	W	  5
6	C	E	  12

Example 4: Replace Multiple Values in a Single Column

The following code shows how to replace multiple values in a single column:

#replace 6, 11, and 8 with 0, 1 and 2 in rebounds column
df['rebounds'] = df['rebounds'].replace([6, 11, 8], [0, 1, 2])

#view DataFrame
print(df)

team	division	rebounds
0	A	E	1
1	A	W	2
2	B	E	7
3	B	E	0
4	B	W	0
5	C	W	5
6	C	E	12

How to Replace NaN Values with Zeros in Pandas

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