Add suffix to all column names when using pandas.merge()

Question

The pandas merge() function allows to add suffixes to overlapping column names:

merged = table1.merge(table2, left_on='header', right_on='header',
                      suffixes=('table1', 'table2'))

However, this adds suffixes only to the overlapping columns. Is it possible to add a suffix to all columns except the merge column?

Answer 1

You could add the suffixes to the tables before merging, and revert the merge column names:

table1 = table1.add_suffix('table1')
table1 = table1.rename(index=str, columns={'headertable1':'header'})

table2 = table2.add_suffix('table2')
table2 = table2.rename(index=str, columns={'headertable2':'header'})

merged = table1.merge(table2, on='header')