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To move a column to the front in a Pandas DataFrame, you can use the ‘DataFrame.reindex’ method, passing a list of the desired column order. The column to be moved to the front should be placed first in the list, followed by the other existing columns in their original order. The method will return a new DataFrame object with the column moved to the front.
You can use the following methods to move columns to the front of a pandas DataFrame:
Method 1: Move One Column to Front
df = df[['my_col'] + [x for x in df.columns if x != 'my_col']]
Method 2: Move Multiple Columns to Front
cols_to_move = ['my_col1', 'my_col2'] df = df[cols_to_move + [x for x in df.columns if x not in cols_to_move]]
The following examples show how to use each method with the following pandas DataFrame:
import pandas as pd
#create DataFrame
df = pd.DataFrame({'team': ['A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F', 'G', 'H'],
'points': [18, 22, 19, 14, 14, 11, 20, 28],
'assists': [5, 7, 7, 9, 12, 9, 9, 4],
'rebounds': [11, 8, 10, 6, 6, 5, 9, 12]})
#view DataFrame
print(df)
team points assists rebounds
0 A 18 5 11
1 B 22 7 8
2 C 19 7 10
3 D 14 9 6
4 E 14 12 6
5 F 11 9 5
6 G 20 9 9
7 H 28 4 12 Example 1: Move One Column to Front
The following code shows how to move the ‘assists’ column to the front of the DataFrame:
#move 'assists' column to front
df = df[['assists'] + [x for x in df.columns if x != 'assists']]
#view updated DataFrame
print(df)
assists team points rebounds
0 5 A 18 11
1 7 B 22 8
2 7 C 19 10
3 9 D 14 6
4 12 E 14 6
5 9 F 11 5
6 9 G 20 9
7 4 H 28 12
The ‘assists’ column has been moved to the front of the DataFrame and every other column has remained in the same order.
Example 2: Move Multiple Columns to Front
The following code shows how to move both the ‘points’ and ‘rebounds’ columns to the front of the DataFrame:
#define columns to move to front
cols_to_move = ['points', 'rebounds']
#move columns to front
df = df[cols_to_move + [x for x in df.columns if x not in cols_to_move]]
#view updated DataFrame
print(df)
points rebounds team assists
0 18 11 A 5
1 22 8 B 7
2 19 10 C 7
3 14 6 D 9
4 14 6 E 12
5 11 5 F 9
6 20 9 G 9
7 28 12 H 4
The ‘points’ and ‘rebounds’ columns have both been moved to the front of the DataFrame.