Replace scalar values using .replace()

Writing Efficient Code with pandas

Leonidas Souliotis

PhD Candidate

The popular name dataset

Year of Birth	Gender	Ethnicity	Child's First Name	Count	Rank
2011	FEMALE	ASIAN AND PACIFIC ISLANDER	SOPHIA	119	1
2011	FEMALE	ASIAN AND PACIFIC ISLANDER	CHLOE	106	2

Replace values in pandas

start_time = time.time()
names['Gender'].loc[names.Gender=='MALE'] = 'BOY'
print("Replace values using .loc[]: {} sec".format(time.time() - start_time))

Results from the first method calculated in 0.0311849 seconds

Replace values using .replace()

start_time = time.time()
names['Gender'].replace('MALE', 'BOY', inplace=True)
print("Time using .replace(): {} sec".fomrat(time.time() - start_time))

Time using .replace(): 0.0016758441925 sec

Differerence in speed: 1,704.52411439%

Let's do it

Writing Efficient Code with pandas