Replace First N characters in Pandas column

In This Section we will be focusing on how to replace the First N character of the column in pandas,  we have also explored two ways to replace the First N Characters of the column in pandas with an example for each.

  • Replace First n characters from right of the column in pandas python can be replaced in a roundabout way.
  • Replace First n characters of the column in pandas python using slice() function with start parameters

 

Let’s Look at these cases with Example,

 

Create Dataframe:

## create dataframe 
import pandas as pd 
d = {'Day' : ['day1','day2','day3','day4'], 'Description' : ['First day of the year', 'Second day of the year', 'Third day of the year', 'FOURTH day of the YEAR']}
df=pd.DataFrame(d) 
df

Result dataframe is

Replace First N charaters and Last N characters in Pandas column 1

 

Replace First N Character of the column in pandas:

Method 1:

Replace first n characters of the column in pandas can be done in by removing the first N characters and appending the required string as shown in the example below. We have replaced first 4 characters with the string “Something”

#### Replace first n character of the column in pandas

df['Description'] = df['Description'].str[:0] + 'Something' + df['Description'].str[4:]
df

Result:

Replace First N charaters and Last N characters in Pandas column 3

 

 

Method 2:

Slice() function with start parameters value 4 will remove the first 4 characters and it is replaced with ‘Something’ string.

#### Replace first n character of the column in pandas
## Method 2
df['Description'] = 'Something' + df['Description'].str.slice(start=4)
df

Result:

Replace First N charaters and Last N characters in Pandas column 3

 

 

                                                                                                         

 

Author

  • Sridhar Venkatachalam

    With close to 10 years on Experience in data science and machine learning Have extensively worked on programming languages like R, Python (Pandas), SAS, Pyspark.

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