Pandas - Setting column value, based on a function that runs on another column - pandas

Question

I have been all over the place to try and get this to work (new to datascience). It's obviously because I don't get how the datastructure of Panda fully works.
I have this code:
def getSearchedValue(identifier):
full_str = anedf["Diskret data"].astype(str)
value=""
if full_str.str.find(identifier) <= -1:
start_index = full_str.str.find(identifier)+len(identifier)+1
end_index = full_str[start_index:].find("|")+start_index
value = full_str[start_index:end_index].astype(str)
return value
for col in anedf.columns:
if col.count("#") > 0:
anedf[col] = getSearchedValue(col)
What i'm trying to do is iterate over my columns. I have around 260 in my dataframe. If they contain the character #, it should try to fill values based on whats in my "Diskret data" column.
Data in the "Diskret data" column is completely messed up but in the form CCC#111~VALUE|DDD#222~VALUE| <- Until there is no more identifiers + values. All identifiers are not present in each row, and they come in no specific order.
The function works if I run it with hard coded strings in regular Python document. But with the dataframe I get various error like:
ValueError: The truth value of a Series is ambiguous. Use a.empty, a.bool(), a.item(), a.any() or a.all().
Input In [119], in <cell line: 12>()
12 for col in anedf.columns:
13 if col.count("#") > 0:
---> 14 anedf[col] = getSearchedValue(col)
Input In [119], in getSearchedValue(identifier)
4 full_str = anedf["Diskret data"].astype(str)
5 value=""
----> 6 if full_str.str.find(identifier) <= -1:
7 start_index = full_str.str.find(identifier)+len(identifier)+1
8 end_index = full_str[start_index:].find("|")+start_index
I guess this is because it evaluate against all rows (Series) which obviously provides some false and true errors. But how can I make the evaluation and assignment so it it's evaluating+assigning like this:
Diskret data
CCC#111
JJSDJ#1234
CCC#111~1IBBB#2323~2234
1 (copied from "Diskret data")
0
JJSDJ#1234~Heart attack
0 (or skipped since the row does not contain a value for the identifier)
Heart attack
The plan is to drop the "Diskret data" when the assignment is done, so I have the data in a more structured way.
--- Update---
By request:
I have included a picture of how I visualize the problem, And what I seemingly can't make it do.
Problem visualisation

Answer 1

With regex you could do something like:
def map_(list_) -> pd.Series:
if list_:
idx, values = zip(*list_)
return pd.Series(values, idx)
else:
return pd.Series(dtype=object)
series = pd.Series(
['CCC#111~1|BBB#2323~2234', 'JJSDJ#1234~Heart attack']
)
reg_series = series.str.findall(r'([^~|]+)~([^~|]+)')
reg_series.apply(map_)
Breaking this down:
Create a new series by running a map on each row that turns your long string into a list of tuples
Create a new series by running a map on each row that turns your long string into a list of tuples.
reg_series = series.str.findall(r'([^~|]+)~([^~|]+)')
reg_series
# output:
# 0 [(CCC#111, 1), (BBB#2323, 2234)]
# 1 [(JJSDJ#1234, Heart attack)]
Then we create a map_ function. This function takes each row of reg_series and maps it to two rows: the first with only the "keys" and the other with only the "values". We then create series of this with the index as the keys and the values as the values.
Edit: We added in a if/else statement that check whether the list exists. If it does not, we return an empty series of type object.
def map_(list_) -> pd.Series:
if list_:
idx, values = zip(*list_)
return pd.Series(values, idx)
else:
return pd.Series(dtype=object)
...
print(idx, values) # first row
# output:
# ('CCC#111', 'BBB#2323') (1, 2234)
Finally we run apply on the series to create a dataframe that takes the outputs from map_ for each row and zips them together in columnar format.
reg_series.apply(map_)
# output:
# CCC#111 BBB#2323 JJSDJ#1234
# 0 1 2234 NaN
# 1 NaN NaN Heart attack