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Pandas Series str | pad method

schedule Aug 11, 2023
Last updated
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Pandas Series.pad(~) pads each string of the Series until the specified length is reached.

WARNING

If the value is not of type string, then NaN will be returned for that value. If all the values are not of type string, then an error will be thrown.

Parameters

1. width | int

The desired length to pad until. If a string is larger than the specified width, then that string is left as is.

2. side | string | optional

The side of the string to pad:

Value

Description

"left"

Adds padding to the left.

"right"

Adds padding to the right.

"both"

Adds padding to both sides.

By default, side="left".

3. fillchar | string | optional

The character to pad with. By default, fillchar=" " (a single whitespace).

Return Value

A Series object.

Examples

Basic usage

To left-pad with "z" until a width of 5:

s = pd.Series(["ab", "2", 2])
s.str.pad(width=5, fillchar="z") # side="left"
0 zzzab
1 zzzz2
2 NaN
dtype: object

Notice how the integer 2 was turned into NaN - this is because it is not a string.

Specifying side=both

Passing side="both" pads both ends of each string:

s = pd.Series(["ab", "2"])
s.str.pad(width=5, fillchar="z", side="both")
0 zzabz
1 zz2zz
dtype: object

Here, notice how two zs were added to the left of "ab", and only one z to the right.

Undefined padding for uneven cases

Unfortunately, there is no rule where the fillchar always gets added to the left side first. For instance, consider the following:

s = pd.Series(["A"])
s.str.pad(width=6, fillchar="z", side="both")
0 zzAzzz
dtype: object

In this case, we have one additional z on the right as opposed to the left.

Case when overflow

When a string is larger than the specified width, then it is left as is:

s = pd.Series(["abbbbb", "20000"])
s.str.pad(width=2, fillchar="z", side="both")
0 abbbbb
1 20000
dtype: object
robocat
Published by Isshin Inada
Edited by 0 others
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