Assign new values to slice from MultiIndex DataFrame

Question

I would like to modify some values from a column in my DataFrame. At the moment I have a view from select via the multi index of my original df (and modif

Answer 1

Sort the frame, then select/set using a tuple for the multi-index

In [12]: df = pd.DataFrame(randn(6, 3), index=arrays, columns=['A', 'B', 'C'])

In [13]: df
Out[13]: 
                  A         B         C
bar one 0 -0.694240  0.725163  0.131891
    two 1 -0.729186  0.244860  0.530870
baz one 2  0.757816  1.129989  0.893080
qux one 3 -2.275694  0.680023 -1.054816
    two 4  0.291889 -0.409024 -0.307302
bar one 5  1.697974 -1.828872 -1.004187

In [14]: df = df.sortlevel(0)

In [15]: df
Out[15]: 
                  A         B         C
bar one 0 -0.694240  0.725163  0.131891
        5  1.697974 -1.828872 -1.004187
    two 1 -0.729186  0.244860  0.530870
baz one 2  0.757816  1.129989  0.893080
qux one 3 -2.275694  0.680023 -1.054816
    two 4  0.291889 -0.409024 -0.307302

In [16]: df.loc[('bar','two'),'A'] = 9999

In [17]: df
Out[17]: 
                     A         B         C
bar one 0    -0.694240  0.725163  0.131891
        5     1.697974 -1.828872 -1.004187
    two 1  9999.000000  0.244860  0.530870
baz one 2     0.757816  1.129989  0.893080
qux one 3    -2.275694  0.680023 -1.054816
    two 4     0.291889 -0.409024 -0.307302

You can also do it with out sorting if you specify the complete index, e.g.

In [23]: df.loc[('bar','two',1),'A'] = 999

In [24]: df
Out[24]: 
                    A         B         C
bar one 0   -0.113216  0.878715 -0.183941
    two 1  999.000000 -1.405693  0.253388
baz one 2    0.441543  0.470768  1.155103
qux one 3   -0.008763  0.917800 -0.699279
    two 4    0.061586  0.537913  0.380175
bar one 5    0.857231  1.144246 -2.369694

To check the sort depth

In [27]: df.index.lexsort_depth
Out[27]: 0

In [28]: df.sortlevel(0).index.lexsort_depth
Out[28]: 3

The last part of your question, assigning with a list (note that you must have the same number of elements as you are trying to replace), and this MUST be sorted for this to work

In [12]: df.loc[('bar','one'),'A'] = [999,888]

In [13]: df
Out[13]: 
                    A         B         C
bar one 0  999.000000 -0.645641  0.369443
        5  888.000000 -0.990632 -0.577401
    two 1   -1.071410  2.308711  2.018476
baz one 2    1.211887  1.516925  0.064023
qux one 3   -0.862670 -0.770585 -0.843773
    two 4   -0.644855 -1.431962  0.232528