How to replace NaNs by preceding or next values in pandas DataFrame?

Question

You could use the fillna method on the DataFrame and specify the method as ffill (forward fill):

>>> df = pd.DataFrame([[1, 2, 3], [4, None, None], [None, None, 9]])
>>> df.fillna(method='ffill')
   0  1  2
0  1  2  3
1  4  2  3
2  4  2  9

This method...

propagate[s] last valid observation forward to next valid

To go the opposite way, there's also a bfill method.

This method doesn't modify the DataFrame inplace - you'll need to rebind the returned DataFrame to a variable or else specify inplace=True:

df.fillna(method='ffill', inplace=True)

The accepted answer is perfect. I had a related but slightly different situation where I had to fill in forward but only within groups. In case someone has the same need, know that fillna works on a DataFrameGroupBy object.

>>> example = pd.DataFrame({'number':[0,1,2,nan,4,nan,6,7,8,9],'name':list('aaabbbcccc')})
>>> example
  name  number
0    a     0.0
1    a     1.0
2    a     2.0
3    b     NaN
4    b     4.0
5    b     NaN
6    c     6.0
7    c     7.0
8    c     8.0
9    c     9.0
>>> example.groupby('name')['number'].fillna(method='ffill') # fill in row 5 but not row 3
0    0.0
1    1.0
2    2.0
3    NaN
4    4.0
5    4.0
6    6.0
7    7.0
8    8.0
9    9.0
Name: number, dtype: float64

You can use pandas.DataFrame.fillna with the method='ffill' option. 'ffill' stands for 'forward fill' and will propagate last valid observation forward. The alternative is 'bfill' which works the same way, but backwards.

import pandas as pd

df = pd.DataFrame([[1, 2, 3], [4, None, None], [None, None, 9]])
df = df.fillna(method='ffill')

print(df)
#   0  1  2
#0  1  2  3
#1  4  2  3
#2  4  2  9

There is also a direct synonym function for this, pandas.DataFrame.ffill, to make things simpler.

One thing that I noticed when trying this solution is that if you have N/A at the start or the end of the array, ffill and bfill don't quite work. You need both.

In [224]: df = pd.DataFrame([None, 1, 2, 3, None, 4, 5, 6, None])

In [225]: df.ffill()
Out[225]:
     0
0  NaN
1  1.0
...
7  6.0
8  6.0

In [226]: df.bfill()
Out[226]:
     0
0  1.0
1  1.0
...
7  6.0
8  NaN

In [227]: df.bfill().ffill()
Out[227]:
     0
0  1.0
1  1.0
...
7  6.0
8  6.0

ffill now has it's own method pd.DataFrame.ffill

df.ffill()

     0    1    2
0  1.0  2.0  3.0
1  4.0  2.0  3.0
2  4.0  2.0  9.0

Only one column version

• Fill NAN with last valid value

df[column_name].fillna(method='ffill', inplace=True)

• Fill NAN with next valid value

df[column_name].fillna(method='backfill', inplace=True)