DataFrame.apply unintuitively changes int to float breaking an index loopup - pandas

Question

Problem description
The column 'a' has type integer, not float. The apply function should not change the type just because the dataframe has another, unrelated float column.
I understand, why it happens: it detects the most suitable type for a Series. I still consider it unintuitive that I select a group of columns to apply some function to them that only works on ints, not on floats, and suddenly I remove one unrelated column and get an exception, because now I only have numeric columns, and all ints became floats.
>>> import pandas as pd
# This works.
>>> pd.DataFrame({'a': [1, 2, 3], 'b': ['', '', '']}).apply(lambda row: row['a'], axis=1)
0 1
1 2
2 3
dtype: int64
# Here we also expect 1, 2, 3, as above.
>>> pd.DataFrame({'a': [1, 2, 3], 'b': [0., 0., 0.]}).apply(lambda row: row['a'], axis=1)
0 1.0
1 2.0
2 3.0
# Why floats?!?!?!?!?!
# It's an integer column:
>>> pd.DataFrame({'a': [1, 2, 3], 'b': [0., 0., 0.]})['a'].dtype
dtype('int64')
Expected Output
0 1
1 2
2 3
dtype: int64
Specifically in my problem I am trying to use the value in the apply function to get the value from a list. I am trying to do this in a performant way such that recasting as int inside the apply is too slow.
>>> pd.DataFrame({'a': [1, 2, 3], 'b': [0., 0., 0.]}).apply(lambda row: myList[row['a']], axis=1)
https://github.com/pandas-dev/pandas/issues/23230
This is from the only source I could find having the same problem.

Answer 1

It seems like your underlying problem is to index a list by the values in one of your DataFrame columns. This can be done by converting your list to an array and then you can normally slice:
Sample Data
import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
df = pd.DataFrame({'a': [1, 0, 3], 'b': ['', '', '']})
myList = ['foo', 'bar', 'baz', 'boo']
Code:
np.array(myList)[df.a.to_numpy()]
#array(['bar', 'baz', 'boo'], dtype='<U3')
Or if you want the Series:
pd.Series(np.array(myList)[df.a.to_numpy()], index=df.index)
#0 bar
#1 foo
#2 boo
#dtype: object
Alternatively with a list comprehension this is:
[myList[i] for i in df.a]
#['bar', 'foo', 'boo']

Answer 2

You are getting caught by Pandas upcasting. Certain operations will result in an upcast column dtype. The (0.24 Doc)[https://pandas.pydata.org/pandas-docs/stable/getting_started/basics.html#gotchas] describes this here.
Examples of this are encountered when certain operations are done.
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
print(pd.__version__)
# float64 is the default dtype of an empty dataframe.
df = pd.DataFrame({'a': [], 'b': []})['a'].dtype
print(df)
try:
df['a'] = [1,2,3,4]
except TypeError as te:
# good, the default dtype is float64
print(te)
print(df)
# even if 'defaul' is changed, this is a surprise
# because referring to all columns does convert to float
df = pd.DataFrame(columns=["col1", "col2"], dtype=np.int64)
# creates an index, "a" is float type
df.loc["a", "col1":"col2"] = np.int64(0)
print(df.dtypes)
df = pd.DataFrame(columns=["col1", "col2"], dtype=np.int64)
# not upcast
df.loc[:"col1"] = np.int64(0)
print(df.dtypes)
Taking a shot at a performant answer that works around such upcasting behavior:
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
print(pd.__version__)
df = pd.DataFrame({'a': [1, 2, 3], 'b': [0., 0., 0.]})
df['a'] = df['a'].apply(lambda row: row+1)
df['b'] = df['b'].apply(lambda row: row+1)
print(df)
print(df['a'].dtype)
print(df['b'].dtype)
dtypes are preserved.
0.24.2
a b
0 2 1.0
1 3 1.0
2 4 1.0
int64
float64