Python Pandas Drop Dataframe

Question

How do I delete a column from a DataFrame? I know this data is not reproducible as I have a CSV file and I am trying to build a pandas data frame to do some wrangling.

import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

df = pd.read_csv('C:\LoadProfiles\CSV\WillBaySchl 2013_2014 KW.csv')

print(df)

This will return the head/tail and:[34944 rows x 3 columns]

pos0 = 0
pos1 = 1
pos2 = 2

colname = df.columns[pos0]
print(colname)

This will return: Meter ID (I want to drop this column/dataframe)

colname = df.columns[pos1]
print(colname)

This will return: Date / Time (I want this to be the pd data frame index)

colname = df.columns[pos2]
print(colname)

This will return: KW(ch: 1 set:0) (This is the data that I want to rename "kW" and do some wrangling...)

If I try this code below:

df = pd.DataFrame.drop(['Meter ID'], axis=1)

print(df)

Python will return the error:TypeError: drop() missing 1 required positional argument: 'labels'

If I try this code below:

df = pd.DataFrame.drop(columns=['Meter ID'])
print(df)

Python will return the error: TypeError: drop() got an unexpected keyword argument 'columns'

Any help is greatly appreciated...

Answer 1

If I understand right to delete column (single) you should use:

df = pd.DataFrame.drop('Meter ID', axis=1)

For more than 1 column:

df = pd.DataFrame.drop(['Meter ID', 'abc'], axis=1)

Difference is in [] brackets.

To delete the whole df you can use either (as mentioned already):

del df

or

df = None

Answer 2

After reading your question , what i understand is you wanted to drop column ['Meter ID'] available in your df = pd.read_csv('C:\LoadProfiles\CSV\WillBaySchl 2013_2014 KW.csv') pandas dataframe . I am assuming that you have column name ['Meter ID'] like these in your dataframe and also as header in your csv file .

>>> df.dtypes
Meter ID           int64
someothercolumn    int64
dtype: object

for that you can simply use these code ,

del df['Meter ID']

Now if you wanted to delete overall dataframe you can simply use these code,

df=None