How to drop a column in Python

In this article, lets discuss how to drop a column in Pandas Dataframe in Python.

For demonstrating this, first lets create a dummy dataframe.

import pandas as pd 

data = {
    'A':['a1', 'a2', 'a3', 'a4', 'a5'],  
    'B':['b1', 'b2', 'b3', 'b4', 'b5'],  
    'C':['c1', 'c2', 'c3', 'c4', 'c5'],  
    'D':['d1', 'd2', 'd3', 'd4', 'd5'],  
    'E':['e1', 'e2', 'e3', 'e4', 'e5']
}

df = pd.DataFrame(data)

df

Output:

    A   B   C   D   E
0  a1  b1  c1  d1  e1
1  a2  b2  c2  d2  e2
2  a3  b3  c3  d3  e3
3  a4  b4  c4  d4  e4
4  a5  b5  c5  d5  e5

So now we’ve got the dataframe. Now let’s use drop() method to drop a column from the dataframe. By using this method, we can drop a specific single column.

import pandas as pd 

data = {
    'A':['a1', 'a2', 'a3', 'a4', 'a5'],  
    'B':['b1', 'b2', 'b3', 'b4', 'b5'],  
    'C':['c1', 'c2', 'c3', 'c4', 'c5'],  
    'D':['d1', 'd2', 'd3', 'd4', 'd5'],  
    'E':['e1', 'e2', 'e3', 'e4', 'e5']
}

df = pd.DataFrame(data)

#remove column name 'A'
print(df.drop(['A'], axis = 1))

Output:

    B   C   D   E
0  b1  c1  d1  e1
1  b2  c2  d2  e2
2  b3  c3  d3  e3
3  b4  c4  d4  e4
4  b5  c5  d5  e5

Remove column based on column index:

import pandas as pd 

data = {
	'A':['a1', 'a2', 'a3', 'a4', 'a5'],  
    'B':['b1', 'b2', 'b3', 'b4', 'b5'],  
    'C':['c1', 'c2', 'c3', 'c4', 'c5'],  
    'D':['d1', 'd2', 'd3', 'd4', 'd5'],  
    'E':['e1', 'e2', 'e3', 'e4', 'e5']
}

df = pd.DataFrame(data)

#removing column index 1, you can remove multiple column indices at a time
df.drop(df.columns[[1]], axis = 1, inplace = True)

df

Output:

    A   C   D   E
0  a1  c1  d1  e1
1  a2  c2  d2  e2
2  a3  c3  d3  e3
3  a4  c4  d4  e4
4  a5  c5  d5  e5