Problems appending rows to DataFrame. ZMQ messages to Pandas Dataframe - pandas

Question

I am taking messages for market data from a ZMQ subscription and turning it into a pandas dataframe.
I tried creating a empty dataframe and appending rows to it. It did not work out. I keep getting this error.
RuntimeWarning: '<' not supported between instances of 'str' and 'int', sort
order is undefined for incomparable objects
result = result.union(other)
Im guessing this is because Im appending a list of strings to a dataframe. I clear the list then try to append the next row. The data is 9 rows. First one is a string and the other 8 are all floats.
list_heartbeat = []
list_fills= []
market_data_bb = []
market_data_fs = []
abacus_fs = []
abacus_bb =[]
df_bar_data_bb = pd.DataFrame(columns= ['Ticker','Start_Time_Intervl','Interval_Length','Current_Open_Price',
'Previous_Open','Previous_Low','Previous_High','Previous_Close','Message_ID'])
def main():
context = zmq.Context()
socket_sub1 = context.socket(zmq.SUB)
socket_sub2 = context.socket(zmq.SUB)
socket_sub3 = context.socket(zmq.SUB)
print('Opening Socket...')
# We can connect to several endpoints if we desire, and receive from all.
print('Connecting to Nicks BroadCast...')
socket_sub1.connect("Server:port")
socket_sub2.connect("Server:port")
socket_sub3.connect("Server:port")
print('Connected To Nicks BroadCast... Waiting For Messages.')
print('Connected To Jasons Two BroadCasts... Waiting for Messages.')
#socket_sub1.setsockopt_string(zmq.SUBSCRIBE, 'H')
socket_sub1.setsockopt_string(zmq.SUBSCRIBE, 'R')
#socket_sub1.setsockopt_string(zmq.SUBSCRIBE, 'HEARTBEAT') #possible heartbeat from Jason
socket_sub2.setsockopt_string(zmq.SUBSCRIBE, 'BAR_FS')
socket_sub2.setsockopt_string(zmq.SUBSCRIBE, 'HEARTBEAT')
socket_sub2.setsockopt_string(zmq.SUBSCRIBE, 'BAR_BB')
socket_sub3.setsockopt_string(zmq.SUBSCRIBE, 'ABA_FS')
socket_sub3.setsockopt_string(zmq.SUBSCRIBE, 'ABA_BB')
poller = zmq.Poller()
poller.register(socket_sub1, zmq.POLLIN)
poller.register(socket_sub2, zmq.POLLIN)
poller.register(socket_sub3, zmq.POLLIN)
while (running):
try:
socks = dict(poller.poll())
except KeyboardInterrupt:
break
#check if the message is in socks, if so then save to message1-3 for future use.
#Msg1 = heartbeat for Nicks server
#Msg2 = fills
#msg3 Mrkt Data split between FS and BB
#msg4
if socket_sub1 in socks:
message1 = socket_sub1.recv_string()
list_heartbeat.append(message1.split())
if socket_sub2 in socks:
message2 = socket_sub2.recv_string()
message3 = socket_sub2.recv_string()
if message2 == 'HEARTBEAT':
print(message2)
print(message3)
if message2 == 'BAR_BB':
message3_split = message3.split(";")
message3_split = [e[3:] for e in message3_split]
#print(message3_split)
message3_split = message3_split
market_data_bb.append(message3_split)
if len(market_data_bb) > 20:
#df_bar_data_bb = pd.DataFrame(market_data_bb, columns= ['Ticker','Start_Time_Intervl','Interval_Length','Current_Open_Price',
# 'Previous_Open','Previous_Low','Previous_High','Previous_Close','Message_ID'])
#df_bar_data_bb.set_index('Start_Time_Intervl', inplace=True)
#ESA = df_bar_data_bb[df_bar_data_bb['Ticker'] == 'ESA Index'].copy()
#print(ESA)
#df_bar_data_bb.set_index('Start_Time_Intervl', inplace=True)
df_bar_data_bb.append(market_data_bb)
market_data_bb.clear()
print(df_bar_data_bb)
The very bottom is what throws the Error. I found a simple way around this that may or may not work. Its the 4 lines above that create a dataframe then set the index and try to create copies of the dataframe. The only problem is I get about anywhere from 40-90 messages a second and every time I get a new one it creates a new dataframe. I eventually have to create a graph out of this and im not exactly sure how I would create a live graph out of this. But thats another problem.
EDIT: I figured it out. Instead of adding the messages to a list I simply convert each message to a pandas series then call my dataframe globally then do df=df.append(message4,ignore_index=True)
I completely removed the need for lists
if message2 == 'BAR_BB':
message3_split = message3.split(";")
message3_split = [e[3:] for e in message3_split]
message4 = pd.Series(message3_split)
global df_bar_data_bb1
df_bar_data_bb1 = df_bar_data_bb1.append(message4, ignore_index = True)