How to create a partially filled column in pandas - pandas

Question

I have a df_trg with, say 10 rows numbered 0-9.
I get from various sources values for an additional column foo which contains only a subset of rows, e.g. S1 has 0-3, 7, 9 and S2 has 4, 6.
I would like to get a data frame with a single new column foo where some rows may remain NaN.
Is there a "nicer" way other than:
df_trg['foo'] = np.nan
for src in sources:
df_trg['foo'][df_trg.index.isin(src.index)] = src
for example, using join or merge?

Answer 1

Let's create the source DataFrame (df), s1 and s2 (Series objects with
updating data) and a list of them (sources):
df = pd.DataFrame(np.arange(1, 51).reshape((5, -1)).T)
s1 = pd.Series([11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16], index=[0, 1, 2, 3, 7, 9])
s2 = pd.Series([27, 28], index=[4, 6])
sources = [s1, s2]
Start the computation from adding foo column, initially filled with
an empty string:
df = df.assign(foo='')
Then run the following "updating" loop:
for src in sources:
df.foo.update(other=src)
The result is:
0 1 2 3 4 foo
0 1 11 21 31 41 11
1 2 12 22 32 42 12
2 3 13 23 33 43 13
3 4 14 24 34 44 14
4 5 15 25 35 45 27
5 6 16 26 36 46
6 7 17 27 37 47 28
7 8 18 28 38 48 15
8 9 19 29 39 49
9 10 20 30 40 50 16
In my opinion, this solution is (at least a little) nicer than yours and
shorter.
Alternative: Fill foo column initially with NaN, but this time
updating values will be converted to float (side effect of using NaN).