Setting flag column depending on whether column contains a given string

Question

Can anyone see why this isn't working?

Its trying to do; if Column Name Contains the text 'Andy', then make a column called Andy and set that row = to 1

df.loc[df['Name'].str.contains(['Andy']),'Andy']=1

If you are planning to do this for other names then consider get_dummies method pandas.pydata.org/pandas-docs/stable/generated/… — shantanuo
– shantanuo, Commented Dec 16, 2018 at 14:01

abarrington · Accepted Answer · 2020-04-02 05:14:50Z

12

You have to remove list, need only string:

df.loc[df['Name'].str.contains('Andy'),'Andy'] = 1

For multiple values chain by |:

df.loc[df['Name'].str.contains('Andy|Andrew'),'Andy'] = 1

edited Apr 2, 2020 at 5:14

abarrington

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answered Dec 13, 2018 at 9:30

jezrael

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abarrington · Accepted Answer · 2020-04-01 21:15:31Z

6

pd.Series.str.contains requires for its pat argument a "Character sequence or regular expression", not a list.

Just use Boolean assignment and convert to int. This will set unmatched rows to 0. For example:

# Name includes 'Andy'
df['Andy'] = df['Name'].str.contains('Andy').astype(int)

# Name includes 'Andy' or 'Andrew'
df['Andy'] = df['Name'].str.contains('Andy|Andrew').astype(int)

edited Apr 1, 2020 at 21:15

abarrington

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answered Dec 13, 2018 at 9:46

jpp

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