How to Swap Two Columns in Pandas (With Example)

You can use the following custom function to swap the position of two columns in a pandas DataFrame:

def swap_columns(df, col1, col2):
    col_list = list(df.columns)
    x, y = col_list.index(col1), col_list.index(col2)
    col_list[y], col_list[x] = col_list[x], col_list[y]
    df = df[col_list]
    return df

This function will swap the positions of columns col1 and col2 in the DataFrame.

The following example shows how to use this function in practice.

Example: Swap Two Columns in Pandas

Suppose we have the following pandas DataFrame:

import pandas as pd

#create DataFrame
df = pd.DataFrame({'team': ['A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F', 'G', 'H'],
                   'points': [18, 22, 19, 14, 14, 11, 20, 28],
                   'assists': [5, 7, 7, 9, 12, 9, 9, 4],
                   'rebounds': [11, 8, 10, 6, 6, 5, 9, 12]})

#view DataFrame
print(df)

  team  points  assists  rebounds
0    A      18        5        11
1    B      22        7         8
2    C      19        7        10
3    D      14        9         6
4    E      14       12         6
5    F      11        9         5
6    G      20        9         9
7    H      28        4        12

We can define a swap_columns() function to swap the positions of the “points” and “rebounds” columns:

#define function to swap columns
def swap_columns(df, col1, col2):
    col_list = list(df.columns)
    x, y = col_list.index(col1), col_list.index(col2)
    col_list[y], col_list[x] = col_list[x], col_list[y]
    df = df[col_list]
    return df

#swap points and rebounds columns
df = swap_columns(df, 'points', 'rebounds'):

#view updated DataFrame
print(df)

  team  rebounds  assists  points
0    A        11        5      18
1    B         8        7      22
2    C        10        7      19
3    D         6        9      14
4    E         6       12      14
5    F         5        9      11
6    G         9        9      20
7    H        12        4      28