Pandas: filling missing values by mean in each group
PythonPandasPandas GroupbyImputationFillnaPython Problem Overview
This should be straightforward, but the closest thing I've found is this post: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18265930/pandas-filling-missing-values-within-a-group, and I still can't solve my problem....
Suppose I have the following dataframe
df = pd.DataFrame({'value': [1, np.nan, np.nan, 2, 3, 1, 3, np.nan, 3], 'name': ['A','A', 'B','B','B','B', 'C','C','C']})
name value
0 A 1
1 A NaN
2 B NaN
3 B 2
4 B 3
5 B 1
6 C 3
7 C NaN
8 C 3
and I'd like to fill in "NaN" with mean value in each "name" group, i.e.
name value
0 A 1
1 A 1
2 B 2
3 B 2
4 B 3
5 B 1
6 C 3
7 C 3
8 C 3
I'm not sure where to go after:
grouped = df.groupby('name').mean()
Thanks a bunch.
Python Solutions
Solution 1 - Python
One way would be to use transform:
>>> df
name value
0 A 1
1 A NaN
2 B NaN
3 B 2
4 B 3
5 B 1
6 C 3
7 C NaN
8 C 3
>>> df["value"] = df.groupby("name").transform(lambda x: x.fillna(x.mean()))
>>> df
name value
0 A 1
1 A 1
2 B 2
3 B 2
4 B 3
5 B 1
6 C 3
7 C 3
8 C 3
Solution 2 - Python
fillna + groupby + transform + mean
This seems intuitive:
df['value'] = df['value'].fillna(df.groupby('name')['value'].transform('mean'))
The groupby + transform syntax maps the groupwise mean to the index of the original dataframe. This is roughly equivalent to @DSM's solution, but avoids the need to define an anonymous lambda function.
Solution 3 - Python
@DSM has IMO the right answer, but I'd like to share my generalization and optimization of the question: Multiple columns to group-by and having multiple value columns:
df = pd.DataFrame(
{
'category': ['X', 'X', 'X', 'X', 'X', 'X', 'Y', 'Y', 'Y'],
'name': ['A','A', 'B','B','B','B', 'C','C','C'],
'other_value': [10, np.nan, np.nan, 20, 30, 10, 30, np.nan, 30],
'value': [1, np.nan, np.nan, 2, 3, 1, 3, np.nan, 3],
}
)
... gives ...
category name other_value value
0 X A 10.0 1.0
1 X A NaN NaN
2 X B NaN NaN
3 X B 20.0 2.0
4 X B 30.0 3.0
5 X B 10.0 1.0
6 Y C 30.0 3.0
7 Y C NaN NaN
8 Y C 30.0 3.0
In this generalized case we would like to group by category and name, and impute only on value.
This can be solved as follows:
df['value'] = df.groupby(['category', 'name'])['value']\
.transform(lambda x: x.fillna(x.mean()))
Notice the column list in the group-by clause, and that we select the value column right after the group-by. This makes the transformation only be run on that particular column. You could add it to the end, but then you will run it for all columns only to throw out all but one measure column at the end. A standard SQL query planner might have been able to optimize this, but pandas (0.19.2) doesn't seem to do this.
Performance test by increasing the dataset by doing ...
big_df = None
for _ in range(10000):
if big_df is None:
big_df = df.copy()
else:
big_df = pd.concat([big_df, df])
df = big_df
... confirms that this increases the speed proportional to how many columns you don't have to impute:
import pandas as pd
from datetime import datetime
def generate_data():
...
t = datetime.now()
df = generate_data()
df['value'] = df.groupby(['category', 'name'])['value']\
.transform(lambda x: x.fillna(x.mean()))
print(datetime.now()-t)
# 0:00:00.016012
t = datetime.now()
df = generate_data()
df["value"] = df.groupby(['category', 'name'])\
.transform(lambda x: x.fillna(x.mean()))['value']
print(datetime.now()-t)
# 0:00:00.030022
On a final note you can generalize even further if you want to impute more than one column, but not all:
df[['value', 'other_value']] = df.groupby(['category', 'name'])['value', 'other_value']\
.transform(lambda x: x.fillna(x.mean()))
Solution 4 - Python
Shortcut:
> Groupby + Apply + Lambda + Fillna + Mean
>>> df['value1']=df.groupby('name')['value'].apply(lambda x:x.fillna(x.mean()))
>>> df.isnull().sum().sum()
0
This solution still works if you want to group by multiple columns to replace missing values.
>>> df = pd.DataFrame({'value': [1, np.nan, np.nan, 2, 3, np.nan,np.nan, 4, 3],
'name': ['A','A', 'B','B','B','B', 'C','C','C'],'class':list('ppqqrrsss')})
>>> df['value']=df.groupby(['name','class'])['value'].apply(lambda x:x.fillna(x.mean()))
>>> df
value name class
0 1.0 A p
1 1.0 A p
2 2.0 B q
3 2.0 B q
4 3.0 B r
5 3.0 B r
6 3.5 C s
7 4.0 C s
8 3.0 C s
Solution 5 - Python
I'd do it this way
df.loc[df.value.isnull(), 'value'] = df.groupby('group').value.transform('mean')
Solution 6 - Python
The featured high ranked answer only works for a pandas Dataframe with only two columns. If you have a more columns case use instead:
df['Crude_Birth_rate'] = df.groupby("continent").Crude_Birth_rate.transform(
lambda x: x.fillna(x.mean()))
Solution 7 - Python
def groupMeanValue(group):
group['value'] = group['value'].fillna(group['value'].mean())
return group
dft = df.groupby("name").transform(groupMeanValue)
Solution 8 - Python
To summarize all above concerning the efficiency of the possible solution I have a dataset with 97 906 rows and 48 columns. I want to fill in 4 columns with the median of each group. The column I want to group has 26 200 groups.
The first solution
start = time.time()
x = df_merged[continuous_variables].fillna(df_merged.groupby('domain_userid')[continuous_variables].transform('median'))
print(time.time() - start)
0.10429811477661133 seconds
The second solution
start = time.time()
for col in continuous_variables:
df_merged.loc[df_merged[col].isnull(), col] = df_merged.groupby('domain_userid')[col].transform('median')
print(time.time() - start)
0.5098445415496826 seconds
The next solution I only performed on a subset since it was running too long.
start = time.time()
for col in continuous_variables:
x = df_merged.head(10000).groupby('domain_userid')[col].transform(lambda x: x.fillna(x.median()))
print(time.time() - start)
11.685635566711426 seconds
The following solution follows the same logic as above.
start = time.time()
x = df_merged.head(10000).groupby('domain_userid')[continuous_variables].transform(lambda x: x.fillna(x.median()))
print(time.time() - start)
42.630549907684326 seconds
So it's quite important to choose the right method. Bear in mind that I noticed once a column was not a numeric the times were going up exponentially (makes sense as I was computing the median).
Solution 9 - Python
df.fillna(df.groupby(['name'], as_index=False).mean(), inplace=True)
Solution 10 - Python
You can also use "dataframe or table_name".apply(lambda x: x.fillna(x.mean())).