[python] summing two columns in a pandas dataframe

when I use this syntax it creates a series rather than adding a column to my new dataframe (sum). Please help.

My code:

sum = data['variance'] = data.budget + data.actual

My Data (in dataframe df): (currently has everything except the budget - actual, I want to create a variance column?

    cluster     date    budget  actual          | budget - actual
0   a   2014-01-01 00:00:00     11000   10000       1000
1   a   2014-02-01 00:00:00     1200    1000
2   a   2014-03-01 00:00:00     200     100
3   b   2014-04-01 00:00:00     200     300
4   b   2014-05-01 00:00:00     400     450
5   c   2014-06-01 00:00:00     700     1000
6   c   2014-07-01 00:00:00     1200    1000
7   c   2014-08-01 00:00:00     200     100
8   c   2014-09-01 00:00:00     200     300

You could also use the .add() function:

 df.loc[:,'variance'] = df.loc[:,'budget'].add(df.loc[:,'actual'])

Same think can be done using lambda function. Here I am reading the data from a xlsx file.

import pandas as pd
df = pd.read_excel("data.xlsx", sheet_name = 4)
print df

Output:

  cluster Unnamed: 1      date  budget  actual
0       a 2014-01-01  00:00:00   11000   10000
1       a 2014-02-01  00:00:00    1200    1000
2       a 2014-03-01  00:00:00     200     100
3       b 2014-04-01  00:00:00     200     300
4       b 2014-05-01  00:00:00     400     450
5       c 2014-06-01  00:00:00     700    1000
6       c 2014-07-01  00:00:00    1200    1000
7       c 2014-08-01  00:00:00     200     100
8       c 2014-09-01  00:00:00     200     300

Sum two columns into 3rd new one.

df['variance'] = df.apply(lambda x: x['budget'] + x['actual'], axis=1)
print df

Output:

  cluster Unnamed: 1      date  budget  actual  variance
0       a 2014-01-01  00:00:00   11000   10000     21000
1       a 2014-02-01  00:00:00    1200    1000      2200
2       a 2014-03-01  00:00:00     200     100       300
3       b 2014-04-01  00:00:00     200     300       500
4       b 2014-05-01  00:00:00     400     450       850
5       c 2014-06-01  00:00:00     700    1000      1700
6       c 2014-07-01  00:00:00    1200    1000      2200
7       c 2014-08-01  00:00:00     200     100       300
8       c 2014-09-01  00:00:00     200     300       500

df['variance'] = df.loc[:,['budget','actual']].sum(axis=1)

If "budget" has any NaN values but you don't want it to sum to NaN then try:

def fun (b, a):
    if math.isnan(b):
        return a
    else:
        return b + a

f = np.vectorize(fun, otypes=[float])

df['variance'] = f(df['budget'], df_Lp['actual'])