Convert a columns of string to list in pandas

Question

I have a problem with the type of one of my column in a pandas dataframe. Basically the column is saved in a csv file as a string, and I wanna use it as a tuple to be able to convert it in a list of numbers. Following there is a very simple csv:

ID,LABELS
1,"(1.0,2.0,2.0,3.0,3.0,1.0,4.0)"
2,"(1.0,2.0,2.0,3.0,3.0,1.0,4.0)"

If a load it with the function "read_csv" I get a list of strings. I have tried to convert to a list, but I get the list version of a string:

df.LABELS.apply(lambda x: list(x))

returns:

['(','1','.','0',.,.,.,.,.,'4','.','0',')']

Any idea on how to be able to do it?

Thank you.

Answer 1

Use str.strip and str.split:

df['LABELS'] = df['LABELS'].str.strip('()').str.split(',')

But if no NaNs here, list comprehension working nice too:

df['LABELS'] = [x.strip('()').split(',') for x in df['LABELS']]

Answer 2

You can use ast.literal_eval, which will give you a tuple:

import ast
df.LABELS = df.LABELS.apply(ast.literal_eval)

If you do want a list, use:

df.LABELS.apply(lambda s: list(ast.literal_eval(s)))