[python] Splitting dataframe into multiple dataframes

I have a very large dataframe (around 1 million rows) with data from an experiment (60 respondents).

I would like to split the dataframe into 60 dataframes (a dataframe for each participant).

In the dataframe, data, there is a variable called 'name', which is the unique code for each participant.

I have tried the following, but nothing happens (or execution does not stop within an hour). What I intend to do is to split the data into smaller dataframes, and append these to a list (datalist):

import pandas as pd

def splitframe(data, name='name'):
    
    n = data[name][0]

    df = pd.DataFrame(columns=data.columns)

    datalist = []

    for i in range(len(data)):
        if data[name][i] == n:
            df = df.append(data.iloc[i])
        else:
            datalist.append(df)
            df = pd.DataFrame(columns=data.columns)
            n = data[name][i]
            df = df.append(data.iloc[i])
        
    return datalist

I do not get an error message, the script just seems to run forever!

Is there a smart way to do it?

• First, the method in the OP works, but isn't efficient. It may have seemed to run forever, because the dataset was long.
• Use .groupby on the 'method' column, and create a dict of DataFrames with unique 'method' values as the keys, with a dict-comprehension.
  • .groupby returns a groupby object, that contains information about the groups, where g is the unique value in 'method' for each group, and d is the DataFrame for that group.
• The value of each key in df_dict, will be a DataFrame, which can be accessed in the standard way, df_dict['key'].
• The original question wanted a list of DataFrames, which can be done with a list-comprehension
  • df_list = [d for _, d in df.groupby('method')]

import pandas as pd
import seaborn as sns  # for test dataset

# load data for example
df = sns.load_dataset('planets')

# display(df.head())
            method  number  orbital_period   mass  distance  year
0  Radial Velocity       1         269.300   7.10     77.40  2006
1  Radial Velocity       1         874.774   2.21     56.95  2008
2  Radial Velocity       1         763.000   2.60     19.84  2011
3  Radial Velocity       1         326.030  19.40    110.62  2007
4  Radial Velocity       1         516.220  10.50    119.47  2009


# Using a dict-comprehension, the unique 'method' value will be the key
df_dict = {g: d for g, d in df.groupby('method')}

print(df_dict.keys())
[out]:
dict_keys(['Astrometry', 'Eclipse Timing Variations', 'Imaging', 'Microlensing', 'Orbital Brightness Modulation', 'Pulsar Timing', 'Pulsation Timing Variations', 'Radial Velocity', 'Transit', 'Transit Timing Variations'])

# or a specific name for the key, using enumerate (e.g. df1, df2, etc.)
df_dict = {f'df{i}': d for i, (g, d) in enumerate(df.groupby('method'))}

print(df_dict.keys())
[out]:
dict_keys(['df0', 'df1', 'df2', 'df3', 'df4', 'df5', 'df6', 'df7', 'df8', 'df9'])

• df_dict['df1].head(3) or df_dict['Astrometry'].head(3)
• There are only 2 in this group

         method  number  orbital_period  mass  distance  year
113  Astrometry       1          246.36   NaN     20.77  2013
537  Astrometry       1         1016.00   NaN     14.98  2010

• df_dict['df2].head(3) or df_dict['Eclipse Timing Variations'].head(3)

                       method  number  orbital_period  mass  distance  year
32  Eclipse Timing Variations       1         10220.0  6.05       NaN  2009
37  Eclipse Timing Variations       2          5767.0   NaN    130.72  2008
38  Eclipse Timing Variations       2          3321.0   NaN    130.72  2008

• df_dict['df3].head(3) or df_dict['Imaging'].head(3)

     method  number  orbital_period  mass  distance  year
29  Imaging       1             NaN   NaN     45.52  2005
30  Imaging       1             NaN   NaN    165.00  2007
31  Imaging       1             NaN   NaN    140.00  2004

• For more information about the seaborn datasets
  • NASA Exoplanets

Alternatively

• This is a manual method to create separate DataFrames using pandas: Boolean Indexing
• This is similar to the accepted answer, but .loc is not required.
• This is an acceptable method for creating a couple extra DataFrames.
• The pythonic way to create multiple objects, is by placing them in a container (e.g. dict, list, generator, etc.), as shown above.

df1 = df[df.method == 'Astrometry']
df2 = df[df.method == 'Eclipse Timing Variations']

You can convert groupby object to tuples and then to dict:

df = pd.DataFrame({'Name':list('aabbef'),
                   'A':[4,5,4,5,5,4],
                   'B':[7,8,9,4,2,3],
                   'C':[1,3,5,7,1,0]}, columns = ['Name','A','B','C'])

print (df)
  Name  A  B  C
0    a  4  7  1
1    a  5  8  3
2    b  4  9  5
3    b  5  4  7
4    e  5  2  1
5    f  4  3  0

d = dict(tuple(df.groupby('Name')))
print (d)
{'b':   Name  A  B  C
2    b  4  9  5
3    b  5  4  7, 'e':   Name  A  B  C
4    e  5  2  1, 'a':   Name  A  B  C
0    a  4  7  1
1    a  5  8  3, 'f':   Name  A  B  C
5    f  4  3  0}

print (d['a'])
  Name  A  B  C
0    a  4  7  1
1    a  5  8  3

It is not recommended, but possible create DataFrames by groups:

for i, g in df.groupby('Name'):
    globals()['df_' + str(i)] =  g

print (df_a)
  Name  A  B  C
0    a  4  7  1
1    a  5  8  3

In addition to Gusev Slava's answer, you might want to use groupby's groups:

{key: df.loc[value] for key, value in df.groupby("name").groups.items()}

This will yield a dictionary with the keys you have grouped by, pointing to the corresponding partitions. The advantage is that the keys are maintained and don't vanish in the list index.

Easy:

[v for k, v in df.groupby('name')]

Can I ask why not just do it by slicing the data frame. Something like

#create some data with Names column
data = pd.DataFrame({'Names': ['Joe', 'John', 'Jasper', 'Jez'] *4, 'Ob1' : np.random.rand(16), 'Ob2' : np.random.rand(16)})

#create unique list of names
UniqueNames = data.Names.unique()

#create a data frame dictionary to store your data frames
DataFrameDict = {elem : pd.DataFrame for elem in UniqueNames}

for key in DataFrameDict.keys():
    DataFrameDict[key] = data[:][data.Names == key]

Hey presto you have a dictionary of data frames just as (I think) you want them. Need to access one? Just enter

DataFrameDict['Joe']

Hope that helps

You can use the groupby command, if you already have some labels for your data.

 out_list = [group[1] for group in in_series.groupby(label_series.values)]

Here's a detailed example:

Let's say we want to partition a pd series using some labels into a list of chunks For example, in_series is:

2019-07-01 08:00:00   -0.10
2019-07-01 08:02:00    1.16
2019-07-01 08:04:00    0.69
2019-07-01 08:06:00   -0.81
2019-07-01 08:08:00   -0.64
Length: 5, dtype: float64

And its corresponding label_series is:

2019-07-01 08:00:00   1
2019-07-01 08:02:00   1
2019-07-01 08:04:00   2
2019-07-01 08:06:00   2
2019-07-01 08:08:00   2
Length: 5, dtype: float64

Run

out_list = [group[1] for group in in_series.groupby(label_series.values)]

which returns out_list a list of two pd.Series:

[2019-07-01 08:00:00   -0.10
2019-07-01 08:02:00   1.16
Length: 2, dtype: float64,
2019-07-01 08:04:00    0.69
2019-07-01 08:06:00   -0.81
2019-07-01 08:08:00   -0.64
Length: 3, dtype: float64]

Note that you can use some parameters from in_series itself to group the series, e.g., in_series.index.day

I had similar problem. I had a time series of daily sales for 10 different stores and 50 different items. I needed to split the original dataframe in 500 dataframes (10stores*50stores) to apply Machine Learning models to each of them and I couldn't do it manually.

This is the head of the dataframe:

I have created two lists; one for the names of dataframes and one for the couple of array [item_number, store_number].

    list=[]
    for i in range(1,len(items)*len(stores)+1):
    global list
    list.append('df'+str(i))

    list_couple_s_i =[]
    for item in items:
          for store in stores:
                  global list_couple_s_i
                  list_couple_s_i.append([item,store])

And once the two lists are ready you can loop on them to create the dataframes you want:

         for name, it_st in zip(list,list_couple_s_i):
                   globals()[name] = df.where((df['item']==it_st[0]) & 
                                                (df['store']==(it_st[1])))
                   globals()[name].dropna(inplace=True)

In this way I have created 500 dataframes.

Hope this will be helpful!

In [28]: df = DataFrame(np.random.randn(1000000,10))

In [29]: df
Out[29]: 
<class 'pandas.core.frame.DataFrame'>
Int64Index: 1000000 entries, 0 to 999999
Data columns (total 10 columns):
0    1000000  non-null values
1    1000000  non-null values
2    1000000  non-null values
3    1000000  non-null values
4    1000000  non-null values
5    1000000  non-null values
6    1000000  non-null values
7    1000000  non-null values
8    1000000  non-null values
9    1000000  non-null values
dtypes: float64(10)

In [30]: frames = [ df.iloc[i*60:min((i+1)*60,len(df))] for i in xrange(int(len(df)/60.) + 1) ]

In [31]: %timeit [ df.iloc[i*60:min((i+1)*60,len(df))] for i in xrange(int(len(df)/60.) + 1) ]
1 loops, best of 3: 849 ms per loop

In [32]: len(frames)
Out[32]: 16667

Here's a groupby way (and you could do an arbitrary apply rather than sum)

In [9]: g = df.groupby(lambda x: x/60)

In [8]: g.sum()    

Out[8]: 
<class 'pandas.core.frame.DataFrame'>
Int64Index: 16667 entries, 0 to 16666
Data columns (total 10 columns):
0    16667  non-null values
1    16667  non-null values
2    16667  non-null values
3    16667  non-null values
4    16667  non-null values
5    16667  non-null values
6    16667  non-null values
7    16667  non-null values
8    16667  non-null values
9    16667  non-null values
dtypes: float64(10)

Sum is cythonized that's why this is so fast

In [10]: %timeit g.sum()
10 loops, best of 3: 27.5 ms per loop

In [11]: %timeit df.groupby(lambda x: x/60)
1 loops, best of 3: 231 ms per loop

Groupby can helps you:

grouped = data.groupby(['name'])

Then you can work with each group like with a dataframe for each participant. And DataFrameGroupBy object methods such as (apply, transform, aggregate, head, first, last) return a DataFrame object.

Or you can make list from grouped and get all DataFrame's by index:

l_grouped = list(grouped)

l_grouped[0][1] - DataFrame for first group with first name.

The method based on list comprehension and groupby- Which stores all the split dataframe in list variable and can be accessed using the index.

Example

ans = [pd.DataFrame(y) for x, y in DF.groupby('column_name', as_index=False)]

ans[0]
ans[0].column_name