Occasionally you may need to convert a pandas DataFrame to a list in Python. Fortunately this is easy to do so using the pandas tolist() function.
This tutorial illustrates several ways to use this function on the following DataFrame:
import numpy as np import pandas as pd #create DataFrame df = pd.DataFrame({'points': [25, 12, 15, 14, 19], 'assists': [5, 7, 7, 9, 12], 'rebounds': [11, 8, 10, 6, 6]}) #view DataFrame df points assists rebounds 0 25 5 11 1 12 7 8 2 15 7 10 3 14 9 6 4 19 12 6
Example 1: Convert Entire DataFrame to List
The following code shows how to convert an entire DataFrame to a list:
#convert entire DataFrame to list
df.values.tolist()
[[25, 5, 11], [12, 7, 8], [15, 7, 10], [14, 9, 6], [19, 12, 6]]
The following code shows how to include the column names in the list:
#convert DataFrame to list and include column names in list [df.columns.values.tolist()] + df.values.tolist() [['points', 'assists', 'rebounds'], [25, 5, 11], [12, 7, 8], [15, 7, 10], [14, 9, 6], [19, 12, 6]]
Example 2: Convert a Single Column to a List
The following code shows how to convert a single column in a DataFrame to a list:
#convert 'points' column to list df['points'].tolist() [25, 12, 15, 14, 19]
The following code shows how to append an item to a list:
#convert 'points' column to list points = df['points'].tolist() #append value to end of list points.append(7) #view list points [25, 12, 15, 14, 19, 7]
Additional Resources
The following tutorials explain how to perform other common conversions in pandas:
How to Convert a List to a DataFrame in Pandas
How to Convert a Dictionary to a DataFrame in Pandas
How to Convert Strings to Float in Pandas
