Groupby in Pandas

R RAMYA

6 min readApr 18, 2022

→ The groupby() method allows you to group your data and execute functions on these groups.

→ Any groupby operation involves one of the following operations on the original object.

Splitting the Object
Applying a function
Combining the results

In many situations, we split the data into sets and we apply some functionality on each subset.

In the apply functionality, we can perform the following operations

Aggregation − computing a summary statistic

Transformation − perform some group-specific operation

Filtration − discarding the data with some condition

Let us now create a DataFrame object and perform all the operations on it

#importing the pandas library

import pandas as pd

Example:

import pandas as pd
ipl_data = {'Team': ['Riders', 'Riders', 'Devils', 'Devils', 'Kings',
'kings', 'Kings', 'Kings', 'Riders', 'Royals', 'Royals', 'Riders'],
'Rank': [1, 2, 2, 3, 3,4 ,1 ,1,2 , 4,1,2],
'Year': [2014,2015,2014,2015,2014,2015,2016,2017,2016,2014,2015,2017],
'Points':[876,789,863,673,741,812,756,788,694,701,804,690]}
df = pd.DataFrame(ipl_data)

print df

Output:

Points   Rank     Team   Year
0      876      1   Riders   2014
1      789      2   Riders   2015
2      863      2   Devils   2014
3      673      3   Devils   2015
4      741      3    Kings   2014
5      812      4    kings   2015
6      756      1    Kings   2016
7      788      1    Kings   2017
8      694      2   Riders   2016
9      701      4   Royals   2014
10     804      1   Royals   2015
11     690      2   Riders   2017

Split Data into Groups

Pandas object can be split into any of their objects.

There are multiple ways to split an object like,

obj.groupby(‘key’)
obj.groupby([‘key1’,’key2'])
obj.groupby(key,axis=1)

Let us now see how the grouping objects can be applied to the DataFrame object…

Example:

import pandas as pd

ipl_data = {'Team': ['Riders', 'Riders', 'Devils', 'Devils', 'Kings',
'kings', 'Kings', 'Kings', 'Riders', 'Royals', 'Royals', 'Riders'],
'Rank': [1, 2, 2, 3, 3,4 ,1 ,1,2 , 4,1,2],
'Year': [2014,2015,2014,2015,2014,2015,2016,2017,2016,2014,2015,2017],
'Points':[876,789,863,673,741,812,756,788,694,701,804,690]}
df = pd.DataFrame(ipl_data)

print df.groupby('Team')

Output:

<pandas.core.groupby.DataFrameGroupBy object at 0x7fa46a977e50>

View Groups

Example:

import pandas as pd

ipl_data = {'Team': ['Riders', 'Riders', 'Devils', 'Devils', 'Kings',
'kings', 'Kings', 'Kings', 'Riders', 'Royals', 'Royals', 'Riders'],
'Rank': [1, 2, 2, 3, 3,4 ,1 ,1,2 , 4,1,2],
'Year': [2014,2015,2014,2015,2014,2015,2016,2017,2016,2014,2015,2017],
'Points':[876,789,863,673,741,812,756,788,694,701,804,690]}
df = pd.DataFrame(ipl_data)

print df.groupby('Team').groups

Output:

{'Kings': Int64Index([4, 6, 7], dtype='int64'),
'Devils': Int64Index([2, 3], dtype='int64'),
'Riders': Int64Index([0, 1, 8, 11], dtype='int64'),
'Royals': Int64Index([9, 10], dtype='int64'),
'kings' : Int64Index([5], dtype='int64')}

Group by with multiple columns

Example:

import pandas as pd

ipl_data = {'Team': ['Riders', 'Riders', 'Devils', 'Devils', 'Kings',
'kings', 'Kings', 'Kings', 'Riders', 'Royals', 'Royals', 'Riders'],
'Rank': [1, 2, 2, 3, 3,4 ,1 ,1,2 , 4,1,2],
'Year': [2014,2015,2014,2015,2014,2015,2016,2017,2016,2014,2015,2017],
'Points':[876,789,863,673,741,812,756,788,694,701,804,690]}
df = pd.DataFrame(ipl_data)

print df.groupby(['Team','Year']).groups

Output:

{('Kings', 2014): Int64Index([4], dtype='int64'),
 ('Royals', 2014): Int64Index([9], dtype='int64'),
 ('Riders', 2014): Int64Index([0], dtype='int64'),
 ('Riders', 2015): Int64Index([1], dtype='int64'),
 ('Kings', 2016): Int64Index([6], dtype='int64'),
 ('Riders', 2016): Int64Index([8], dtype='int64'),
 ('Riders', 2017): Int64Index([11], dtype='int64'),
 ('Devils', 2014): Int64Index([2], dtype='int64'),
 ('Devils', 2015): Int64Index([3], dtype='int64'),
 ('kings', 2015): Int64Index([5], dtype='int64'),
 ('Royals', 2015): Int64Index([10], dtype='int64'),
 ('Kings', 2017): Int64Index([7], dtype='int64')}

Iterating through Groups

→ With the groupby object in hand, we can iterate through the object similar to itertools.obj.

Example:

import pandas as pd

ipl_data = {'Team': ['Riders', 'Riders', 'Devils', 'Devils', 'Kings',
   'kings', 'Kings', 'Kings', 'Riders', 'Royals', 'Royals', 'Riders'],
   'Rank': [1, 2, 2, 3, 3,4 ,1 ,1,2 , 4,1,2],
   'Year': [2014,2015,2014,2015,2014,2015,2016,2017,2016,2014,2015,2017],
   'Points':[876,789,863,673,741,812,756,788,694,701,804,690]}
df = pd.DataFrame(ipl_data)

grouped = df.groupby('Year')

for name,group in grouped:
   print name
   print group

Output:

2014
   Points  Rank     Team   Year
0     876     1   Riders   2014
2     863     2   Devils   2014
4     741     3   Kings    2014
9     701     4   Royals   2014

2015
   Points  Rank     Team   Year
1     789     2   Riders   2015
3     673     3   Devils   2015
5     812     4    kings   2015
10    804     1   Royals   2015

2016
   Points  Rank     Team   Year
6     756     1    Kings   2016
8     694     2   Riders   2016

2017
   Points  Rank    Team   Year
7     788     1   Kings   2017
11    690     2  Riders   2017

By default, the groupby object has the same label name as the group name.

Select a Group

Using the get_group() method, we can select a single group.

Example:

import pandas as pd

ipl_data = {'Team': ['Riders', 'Riders', 'Devils', 'Devils', 'Kings',
   'kings', 'Kings', 'Kings', 'Riders', 'Royals', 'Royals', 'Riders'],
   'Rank': [1, 2, 2, 3, 3,4 ,1 ,1,2 , 4,1,2],
   'Year': [2014,2015,2014,2015,2014,2015,2016,2017,2016,2014,2015,2017],
   'Points':[876,789,863,673,741,812,756,788,694,701,804,690]}
df = pd.DataFrame(ipl_data)

grouped = df.groupby('Year')
print grouped.get_group(2014)

Output:

Points  Rank     Team    Year
0     876     1   Riders    2014
2     863     2   Devils    2014
4     741     3   Kings     2014
9     701     4   Royals    2014

Aggregations

An aggregated function returns a single aggregated value for each group. Once the group by object is created, several aggregation operations can be performed on the grouped data.

→ An obvious one is aggregation via the aggregate or equivalent agg method.

Example:

import pandas as pd
import numpy as np

ipl_data = {'Team': ['Riders', 'Riders', 'Devils', 'Devils', 'Kings',
   'kings', 'Kings', 'Kings', 'Riders', 'Royals', 'Royals', 'Riders'],
   'Rank': [1, 2, 2, 3, 3,4 ,1 ,1,2 , 4,1,2],
   'Year': [2014,2015,2014,2015,2014,2015,2016,2017,2016,2014,2015,2017],
   'Points':[876,789,863,673,741,812,756,788,694,701,804,690]}
df = pd.DataFrame(ipl_data)

grouped = df.groupby('Year')
print grouped['Points'].agg(np.mean)

Output:

Year
2014   795.25
2015   769.50
2016   725.00
2017   739.00
Name: Points, dtype: float64

Applying Multiple Aggregation Functions at Once

With grouped Series, you can also pass a list or dict of functions to do aggregation with, and generate DataFrame as output.

Example:

import pandas as pd
import numpy as np

ipl_data = {'Team': ['Riders', 'Riders', 'Devils', 'Devils', 'Kings',
   'kings', 'Kings', 'Kings', 'Riders', 'Royals', 'Royals', 'Riders'],
   'Rank': [1, 2, 2, 3, 3,4 ,1 ,1,2 , 4,1,2],
   'Year': [2014,2015,2014,2015,2014,2015,2016,2017,2016,2014,2015,2017],
   'Points':[876,789,863,673,741,812,756,788,694,701,804,690]}
df = pd.DataFrame(ipl_data)

grouped = df.groupby('Team')
print grouped['Points'].agg([np.sum, np.mean, np.std])

Output:

Team      sum      mean          std
Devils   1536   768.000000   134.350288
Kings    2285   761.666667    24.006943
Riders   3049   762.250000    88.567771
Royals   1505   752.500000    72.831998
kings     812   812.000000          NaN

Transformations

Transformation on a group or a column returns an object that is indexed the same size of that is being grouped.

→ Thus, the transform should return a result that is the same size as that of a group chunk.

Example:

import pandas as pd
import numpy as np

ipl_data = {'Team': ['Riders', 'Riders', 'Devils', 'Devils', 'Kings',
   'kings', 'Kings', 'Kings', 'Riders', 'Royals', 'Royals', 'Riders'],
   'Rank': [1, 2, 2, 3, 3,4 ,1 ,1,2 , 4,1,2],
   'Year': [2014,2015,2014,2015,2014,2015,2016,2017,2016,2014,2015,2017],
   'Points':[876,789,863,673,741,812,756,788,694,701,804,690]}
df = pd.DataFrame(ipl_data)

grouped = df.groupby('Team')
score = lambda x: (x - x.mean()) / x.std()*10
print grouped.transform(score)

Output:

Points        Rank        Year
0   12.843272  -15.000000  -11.618950
1   3.020286     5.000000   -3.872983
2   7.071068    -7.071068   -7.071068
3  -7.071068     7.071068    7.071068
4  -8.608621    11.547005  -10.910895
5        NaN          NaN         NaN
6  -2.360428    -5.773503    2.182179
7  10.969049    -5.773503    8.728716
8  -7.705963     5.000000    3.872983
9  -7.071068     7.071068   -7.071068
10  7.071068    -7.071068    7.071068
11 -8.157595     5.000000   11.618950

Filtration

Filtration filters the data on a defined criteria and returns the subset of data. The filter() function is used to filter the data.

Example:

import pandas as pd
import numpy as np

ipl_data = {'Team': ['Riders', 'Riders', 'Devils', 'Devils', 'Kings',
   'kings', 'Kings', 'Kings', 'Riders', 'Royals', 'Royals', 'Riders'],
   'Rank': [1, 2, 2, 3, 3,4 ,1 ,1,2 , 4,1,2],
   'Year': [2014,2015,2014,2015,2014,2015,2016,2017,2016,2014,2015,2017],
   'Points':[876,789,863,673,741,812,756,788,694,701,804,690]}
df = pd.DataFrame(ipl_data)

print df.groupby('Team').filter(lambda x: len(x) >= 3)

Output:

ts  Rank     Team   Year
0      876     1   Riders   2014
1      789     2   Riders   2015
4      741     3   Kings    2014
6      756     1   Kings    2016
7      788     1   Kings    2017
8      694     2   Riders   2016
11     690     2   Riders   2017

-→ In the above filter condition, we are asking to return the teams which have participated three or more times in IPL.

I hope you got some idea about Groupby Function in pandas.

Catch you in next wonderful blog.

Thanks! Bye.

Groupby in Pandas

In the apply functionality, we can perform the following operations

#importing the pandas library

Example:

Output:

Split Data into Groups

Example:

Output:

View Groups

Example:

Output:

Group by with multiple columns

Example:

Output:

Iterating through Groups

Example:

Output:

Select a Group

Example:

Output:

Aggregations

Example:

Output:

Applying Multiple Aggregation Functions at Once

Example:

Output:

Transformations

Example:

Output:

Filtration

Example:

Output:

Written by R RAMYA