First n characters from left of the column in pandas python can be extracted in a roundabout way. Let’s see how to return first n characters from left of column in pandas python with an example.
First let’s create a dataframe
import pandas as pd import numpy as np #Create a DataFrame df1 = { 'State':['Arizona AZ','Georgia GG','Newyork NY','Indiana IN','Florida FL'], 'Score':[62,47,55,74,31]} df1 = pd.DataFrame(df1,columns=['State','Score']) print(df1)
df1 will be
Extract first n Characters from left of column in pandas:
str[:n] is used to get first n characters of column in pandas
df1['StateInitial'] = df1['State'].str[:2] print(df1)
str[:2] is used to get first two characters of column in pandas and it is stored in another column namely StateInitial so the resultant dataframe will be