python - pandas: best way to select all columns whose names start with X

Question

I have a DataFrame:

import pandas as pd
import numpy as np

df = pd.DataFrame({'foo.aa': [1, 2.1, np.nan, 4.7, 5.6, 6.8],
                   'foo.fighters': [0, 1, np.nan, 0, 0, 0],
                   'foo.bars': [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1],
                   'bar.baz': [5, 5, 6, 5, 5.6, 6.8],
                   'foo.fox': [2, 4, 1, 0, 0, 5],
                   'nas.foo': ['NA', 0, 1, 0, 0, 0],
                   'foo.manchu': ['NA', 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],})

I want to select values of 1 in columns starting with foo.. Is there a better way to do it other than:

df2 = df[(df['foo.aa'] == 1)|
(df['foo.fighters'] == 1)|
(df['foo.bars'] == 1)|
(df['foo.fox'] == 1)|
(df['foo.manchu'] == 1)
]

Something similar to writing something like:

df2= df[df.STARTS_WITH_FOO == 1]

The answer should print out a DataFrame like this:

   bar.baz  foo.aa  foo.bars  foo.fighters  foo.fox foo.manchu nas.foo
0      5.0     1.0         0             0        2         NA      NA
1      5.0     2.1         0             1        4          0       0
2      6.0     NaN         0           NaN        1          0       1
5      6.8     6.8         1             0        5          0       0

[4 rows x 7 columns]

Answer 1

Just perform a list comprehension to create your columns:

In [28]:

filter_col = [col for col in df if col.startswith('foo')]
filter_col
Out[28]:
['foo.aa', 'foo.bars', 'foo.fighters', 'foo.fox', 'foo.manchu']
In [29]:

df[filter_col]
Out[29]:
   foo.aa  foo.bars  foo.fighters  foo.fox foo.manchu
0     1.0         0             0        2         NA
1     2.1         0             1        4          0
2     NaN         0           NaN        1          0
3     4.7         0             0        0          0
4     5.6         0             0        0          0
5     6.8         1             0        5          0

Another method is to create a series from the columns and use the vectorised str method startswith:

In [33]:

df[df.columns[pd.Series(df.columns).str.startswith('foo')]]
Out[33]:
   foo.aa  foo.bars  foo.fighters  foo.fox foo.manchu
0     1.0         0             0        2         NA
1     2.1         0             1        4          0
2     NaN         0           NaN        1          0
3     4.7         0             0        0          0
4     5.6         0             0        0          0
5     6.8         1             0        5          0

In order to achieve what you want you need to add the following to filter the values that don't meet your ==1 criteria:

In [36]:

df[df[df.columns[pd.Series(df.columns).str.startswith('foo')]]==1]
Out[36]:
   bar.baz  foo.aa  foo.bars  foo.fighters  foo.fox foo.manchu nas.foo
0      NaN       1       NaN           NaN      NaN        NaN     NaN
1      NaN     NaN       NaN             1      NaN        NaN     NaN
2      NaN     NaN       NaN           NaN        1        NaN     NaN
3      NaN     NaN       NaN           NaN      NaN        NaN     NaN
4      NaN     NaN       NaN           NaN      NaN        NaN     NaN
5      NaN     NaN         1           NaN      NaN        NaN     NaN

EDIT

OK after seeing what you want the convoluted answer is this:

In [72]:

df.loc[df[df[df.columns[pd.Series(df.columns).str.startswith('foo')]] == 1].dropna(how='all', axis=0).index]
Out[72]:
   bar.baz  foo.aa  foo.bars  foo.fighters  foo.fox foo.manchu nas.foo
0      5.0     1.0         0             0        2         NA      NA
1      5.0     2.1         0             1        4          0       0
2      6.0     NaN         0           NaN        1          0       1
5      6.8     6.8         1             0        5          0       0