Pandas create empty DataFrame with only column names

Question

You can create an empty DataFrame with either column names or an Index:

In [4]: import pandas as pd
In [5]: df = pd.DataFrame(columns=['A','B','C','D','E','F','G'])
In [6]: df
Out[6]:
Empty DataFrame
Columns: [A, B, C, D, E, F, G]
Index: []

Or

In [7]: df = pd.DataFrame(index=range(1,10))
In [8]: df
Out[8]:
Empty DataFrame
Columns: []
Index: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

Edit: Even after your amendment with the .to_html, I can't reproduce. This:

df = pd.DataFrame(columns=['A','B','C','D','E','F','G'])
df.to_html('test.html')

Produces:

<table border="1" class="dataframe">
  <thead>
    <tr style="text-align: right;">
      <th></th>
      <th>A</th>
      <th>B</th>
      <th>C</th>
      <th>D</th>
      <th>E</th>
      <th>F</th>
      <th>G</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
  </tbody>
</table>

Are you looking for something like this?

    COLUMN_NAMES=['A','B','C','D','E','F','G']
    df = pd.DataFrame(columns=COLUMN_NAMES)
    df.columns

   Index(['A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F', 'G'], dtype='object')

Creating colnames with iterating

df = pd.DataFrame(columns=['colname_' + str(i) for i in range(5)])
print(df)

# Empty DataFrame
# Columns: [colname_0, colname_1, colname_2, colname_3, colname_4]
# Index: []

to_html() operations

print(df.to_html())

# <table border="1" class="dataframe">
#   <thead>
#     <tr style="text-align: right;">
#       <th></th>
#       <th>colname_0</th>
#       <th>colname_1</th>
#       <th>colname_2</th>
#       <th>colname_3</th>
#       <th>colname_4</th>
#     </tr>
#   </thead>
#   <tbody>
#   </tbody>
# </table>

this seems working

print(type(df.to_html()))
# <class 'str'>

The problem is caused by

when you create df like this

df = pd.DataFrame(columns=COLUMN_NAMES)

it has 0 rows × n columns, you need to create at least one row index by

df = pd.DataFrame(columns=COLUMN_NAMES, index=[0])

now it has 1 rows × n columns. You are be able to add data. Otherwise its df that only consist colnames object(like a string list).

df.to_html() has a columns parameter.

Just pass the columns into the to_html() method.

df.to_html(columns=['A','B','C','D','E','F','G'])