Dropping multiple Pandas columns by Index

Question

I have a large pandas dataframe (>100 columns). I need to drop various sets of columns and i'm hoping there is a way of using the old

df.drop(df.columns['slices'],axis=1)

I've built selections such as:

a = df.columns[3:23]
b = df.colums[-6:]

as a and b represent column sets I want to drop.

The following

list(df)[3:23]+list(df)[-6:]

yields the correct selection, but i can't implement it with a drop:

df.drop(df.columns[list(df)[3:23]+list(df)[-6:]],axis=1)

ValueError: operands could not be broadcast together with shapes (20,) (6,)

I looked around but can't get my answer.

Selecting last n columns and excluding last n columns in dataframe

(Below pertains to the error I receive):

python numpy ValueError: operands could not be broadcast together with shapes

This one feels like they're having a similar issue, but the 'slices' aren't separate: Deleting multiple columns based on column names in Pandas

Cheers

Answer 1

This returns the dataframe with the columns removed

df.drop(list(df)[2:5], axis=1)

Answer 2

You can use np.r_ to seamlessly combine multiple ranges / slices:

from string import ascii_uppercase

df = pd.DataFrame(columns=list(ascii_uppercase))

idx = np.r_[3:10, -5:0]

print(idx)

array([ 3,  4,  5,  6,  7,  8,  9, -5, -4, -3, -2, -1])

You can then use idx to index your columns and feed to pd.DataFrame.drop:

df.drop(df.columns[idx], axis=1, inplace=True)

print(df.columns)

Index(['A', 'B', 'C', 'K', 'L', 'M', 'N',
       'O','P', 'Q', 'R', 'S', 'T', 'U'], dtype='object')

Answer 3

You can use this simple solution:

cols = [3,7,10,12,14,16,18,20,22]
df.drop(df.columns[cols],axis=1,inplace=True)

the result :

    0   1   2   4   5   6   8   9    11  13      15     17      19       21
0   3   12  10  3   2   1   7   512  64  1024.0  -1.0   -1.0    -1.0    -1.0
1   5   12  10  3   2   1   7   16   2   32.0    32.0   1024.0  -1.0    -1.0
2   5   12  10  3   2   1   7   512  2   32.0    32.0   32.0    -1.0    -1.0
3   5   12  10  3   2   1   7   16   1   32.0    64.0   1024.0  -1.0    -1.0

As you can see the columns with given index have been all deleted.

You can replace the int value by the name of the column you have in your array if we suppose you have A,B,C ...etc you can replace int values in cols like this for example :

cols = ['A','B','C','F']