How do you split All columns in a large pandas data frame? - pandas

Question

I have a very large data frame that I want to split ALL of the columns except first two based on a comma delimiter. So I need to logically reference column names in a loop or some other way to split all the columns in one swoop.
In my testing of the split method:
I have been able to explicitly refer to ( i.e. HARD CODE) a single column name (rs145629793) as one of the required parameters and the result was 2 new columns as I wanted.
See python code below
HARDCODED COLUMN NAME --
df[['rs1','rs2']] = df.rs145629793.str.split(",", expand = True)
The problem:
It is not feasible to refer to the actual column names and repeat code.
I then replaced the actual column name rs145629793 with columns[2] in the split method parameter list.
It results in an ERROR
'str has ni str attribute'

Answer 1

You can index columns by position rather than name using iloc. For example, to get the third column:
df.iloc[:, 2]
Thus you can easily loop over the columns you need.

Answer 2

I know what you are asking, but it's still helpful to provide some input data and expected output data. I have included random input data in my code below, so you can just copy and paste this to run, and try to apply it to your dataframe:
import pandas as pd
your_dataframe=pd.DataFrame({'a':['1,2,3', '9,8,7'],
'b':['4,5,6', '6,5,4'],
'c':['7,8,9', '3,2,1']})
import copy
def split_cols(df):
dict_of_df = {}
cols=df.columns.to_list()
for col in cols:
key_name = 'df'+str(col)
dict_of_df[key_name] = copy.deepcopy(df)
var=df[col].str.split(',', expand=True).add_prefix(col)
df=pd.merge(df, var, how='left', left_index=True, right_index=True).drop(col, axis=1)
return df
split_cols(your_dataframe)
Essentially, in this solution you create a list of the columns that you want to loop through. Then you loop through that list and create new dataframes for each column where you run the split() function. Then you merge everything back together on the index. I also:
included a prefix of the column name, so the column names did not have duplicate names and could be more easily identifiable
dropped the old column that we did the split on.
Just import copy and use the split_cols() function that I have created and pass the name of your dataframe.