pandas DataFrame: replace nan values with average of columns
I've got a pandas DataFrame filled mostly with real numbers, but there is a few nan
values in it as well.
How can I replace the nan
s with averages of columns where they are?
This question is very similar to this one: numpy array: replace nan values with average of columns but, unfortunately, the solution given there doesn't work for a pandas DataFrame.
Solution 1:
You can simply use DataFrame.fillna
to fill the nan
's directly:
In [27]: df
Out[27]:
A B C
0 -0.166919 0.979728 -0.632955
1 -0.297953 -0.912674 -1.365463
2 -0.120211 -0.540679 -0.680481
3 NaN -2.027325 1.533582
4 NaN NaN 0.461821
5 -0.788073 NaN NaN
6 -0.916080 -0.612343 NaN
7 -0.887858 1.033826 NaN
8 1.948430 1.025011 -2.982224
9 0.019698 -0.795876 -0.046431
In [28]: df.mean()
Out[28]:
A -0.151121
B -0.231291
C -0.530307
dtype: float64
In [29]: df.fillna(df.mean())
Out[29]:
A B C
0 -0.166919 0.979728 -0.632955
1 -0.297953 -0.912674 -1.365463
2 -0.120211 -0.540679 -0.680481
3 -0.151121 -2.027325 1.533582
4 -0.151121 -0.231291 0.461821
5 -0.788073 -0.231291 -0.530307
6 -0.916080 -0.612343 -0.530307
7 -0.887858 1.033826 -0.530307
8 1.948430 1.025011 -2.982224
9 0.019698 -0.795876 -0.046431
The docstring of fillna
says that value
should be a scalar or a dict, however, it seems to work with a Series
as well. If you want to pass a dict, you could use df.mean().to_dict()
.
Solution 2:
Try:
sub2['income'].fillna((sub2['income'].mean()), inplace=True)
Solution 3:
In [16]: df = DataFrame(np.random.randn(10,3))
In [17]: df.iloc[3:5,0] = np.nan
In [18]: df.iloc[4:6,1] = np.nan
In [19]: df.iloc[5:8,2] = np.nan
In [20]: df
Out[20]:
0 1 2
0 1.148272 0.227366 -2.368136
1 -0.820823 1.071471 -0.784713
2 0.157913 0.602857 0.665034
3 NaN -0.985188 -0.324136
4 NaN NaN 0.238512
5 0.769657 NaN NaN
6 0.141951 0.326064 NaN
7 -1.694475 -0.523440 NaN
8 0.352556 -0.551487 -1.639298
9 -2.067324 -0.492617 -1.675794
In [22]: df.mean()
Out[22]:
0 -0.251534
1 -0.040622
2 -0.841219
dtype: float64
Apply per-column the mean of that columns and fill
In [23]: df.apply(lambda x: x.fillna(x.mean()),axis=0)
Out[23]:
0 1 2
0 1.148272 0.227366 -2.368136
1 -0.820823 1.071471 -0.784713
2 0.157913 0.602857 0.665034
3 -0.251534 -0.985188 -0.324136
4 -0.251534 -0.040622 0.238512
5 0.769657 -0.040622 -0.841219
6 0.141951 0.326064 -0.841219
7 -1.694475 -0.523440 -0.841219
8 0.352556 -0.551487 -1.639298
9 -2.067324 -0.492617 -1.675794
Solution 4:
Although, the below code does the job, BUT its performance takes a big hit, as you deal with a DataFrame with # records 100k or more:
df.fillna(df.mean())
In my experience, one should replace NaN values (be it with Mean or Median), only where it is required, rather than applying fillna() all over the DataFrame.
I had a DataFrame with 20 variables, and only 4 of them required NaN values treatment (replacement). I tried the above code (Code 1), along with a slightly modified version of it (code 2), where i ran it selectively .i.e. only on variables which had a NaN value
#------------------------------------------------
#----(Code 1) Treatment on overall DataFrame-----
df.fillna(df.mean())
#------------------------------------------------
#----(Code 2) Selective Treatment----------------
for i in df.columns[df.isnull().any(axis=0)]: #---Applying Only on variables with NaN values
df[i].fillna(df[i].mean(),inplace=True)
#---df.isnull().any(axis=0) gives True/False flag (Boolean value series),
#---which when applied on df.columns[], helps identify variables with NaN values
Below is the performance i observed, as i kept on increasing the # records in DataFrame
DataFrame with ~100k records
- Code 1: 22.06 Seconds
- Code 2: 0.03 Seconds
DataFrame with ~200k records
- Code 1: 180.06 Seconds
- Code 2: 0.06 Seconds
DataFrame with ~1.6 Million records
- Code 1: code kept running endlessly
- Code 2: 0.40 Seconds
DataFrame with ~13 Million records
- Code 1: --did not even try, after seeing performance on 1.6 Mn records--
- Code 2: 3.20 Seconds
Apologies for a long answer ! Hope this helps !