Python Pandas Drop Duplicates keep second to last

Question

What\'s the most efficient way to select the second to last of each duplicated set in a pandas dataframe?

For instance I basically want to do this operation:

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Answer 1

With groupby.apply:

df = pd.DataFrame({'A': [1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4], 
                   'B': np.arange(10), 'C': np.arange(10)})

df
Out: 
   A  B  C
0  1  0  0
1  1  1  1
2  1  2  2
3  1  3  3
4  2  4  4
5  2  5  5
6  2  6  6
7  3  7  7
8  3  8  8
9  4  9  9

(df.groupby('A', as_index=False).apply(lambda x: x if len(x)==1 else x.iloc[[-2]])
   .reset_index(level=0, drop=True))
Out: 
   A  B  C
2  1  2  2
5  2  5  5
7  3  7  7
9  4  9  9

With a different DataFrame, subset two columns:

df = pd.DataFrame({'A': [1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4], 
                   'B': [1, 1, 2, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4], 'C': np.arange(10)})

df
Out: 
   A  B  C
0  1  1  0
1  1  1  1
2  1  2  2
3  1  1  3
4  2  2  4
5  2  2  5
6  2  2  6
7  3  3  7
8  3  3  8
9  4  4  9

(df.groupby(['A', 'B'], as_index=False).apply(lambda x: x if len(x)==1 else x.iloc[[-2]])
   .reset_index(level=0, drop=True))
Out: 
   A  B  C
1  1  1  1
2  1  2  2
5  2  2  5
7  3  3  7
9  4  4  9