pandas combine two columns with null values

Question

I have a df with two columns and I want to combine both columns ignoring the NaN values. The catch is that sometimes both columns have NaN values in which case I want the new co

Answer 1

You can always fill the empty string in the new column with None

import numpy as np

df['new_col'].replace(r'^\s*$', np.nan, regex=True, inplace=True)

Complete code:

import pandas as pd
import numpy as np

df = pd.DataFrame({'foodstuff':['apple-martini', 'apple-pie', None, None, None], 'type':[None, None, 'strawberry-tart', 'dessert', None]})

df['new_col'] = df['foodstuff'].fillna('') + df['type'].fillna('')

df['new_col'].replace(r'^\s*$', np.nan, regex=True, inplace=True)

df

output:

    foodstuff   type    new_col
0   apple-martini   None    apple-martini
1   apple-pie   None    apple-pie
2   None    strawberry-tart strawberry-tart
3   None    dessert dessert
4   None    None    NaN