[python] Check if string is in a pandas dataframe

I would like to see if a particular string exists in a particular column within my dataframe.

I'm getting the error

ValueError: The truth value of a Series is ambiguous. Use a.empty, a.bool(), a.item(), a.any() or a.all().

import pandas as pd

BabyDataSet = [('Bob', 968), ('Jessica', 155), ('Mary', 77), ('John', 578), ('Mel', 973)]

a = pd.DataFrame(data=BabyDataSet, columns=['Names', 'Births'])

if a['Names'].str.contains('Mel'):
    print "Mel is there"

Pandas seem to be recommending df.to_numpy since the other methods still raise a FutureWarning: https://pandas.pydata.org/pandas-docs/stable/reference/api/pandas.DataFrame.to_numpy.html#pandas.DataFrame.to_numpy

So, an alternative that would work int this case is:

b=a['Names']
c = b.to_numpy().tolist()
if 'Mel' in c:
     print("Mel is in the dataframe column Names")

You should check the value of your line of code like adding checking length of it.

if(len(a['Names'].str.contains('Mel'))>0):
    print("Name Present")

it seems that the OP meant to find out whether the string 'Mel' exists in a particular column, not contained in a column, therefore the use of contains is not needed, and is not efficient. A simple equals-to is enough:

(a['Names']=='Mel').any()

I bumped into the same problem, I used:

if "Mel" in a["Names"].values:
    print("Yep")

But this solution may be slower since internally pandas create a list from a Series.

You should use any()

In [98]: a['Names'].str.contains('Mel').any()
Out[98]: True

In [99]: if a['Names'].str.contains('Mel').any():
   ....:     print "Mel is there"
   ....:
Mel is there

a['Names'].str.contains('Mel') gives you a series of bool values

In [100]: a['Names'].str.contains('Mel')
Out[100]:
0    False
1    False
2    False
3    False
4     True
Name: Names, dtype: bool

If there is any chance that you will need to search for empty strings,

    a['Names'].str.contains('') 

will NOT work, as it will always return True.

Instead, use

    if '' in a["Names"].values

to accurately reflect whether or not a string is in a Series, including the edge case of searching for an empty string.