Python Pandas: How to merge based on an “OR” condition?

Question

Let\'s say I have two dataframes, and the column names for both are:

table 1 columns:
[ShipNumber, TrackNumber, ShipDate, Quantity, Weight]
table 2 columns:
[Shi         


        

Answer 1

I would suggest this alternate way for doing merge like this. This seems easier for me.

table1["id_to_be_merged"] = table1.apply(
    lambda row: row["ShipNumber"] if pd.notnull(row["ShipNumber"]) else row["TrackNumber"], axis=1)

You can add the same column in table2 as well if needed and then use in left_in or right_on based on your requirement.