Pandas, DataFrame: Splitting one column into multiple columns

Question

I have the following DataFrame. I am wondering whether it is possible to break the data column into multiple columns. E.g., from this:

ID       Date             


        

Answer 1

df = pd.DataFrame([
        [6, "a: 1, b: 2"],
        [6, "a: 1, b: 2"],
        [6, "a: 1, b: 2"],
        [6, "a: 1, b: 2"],
    ], columns=['ID', 'dictionary'])

def str2dict(s):
    split = s.strip().split(',')
    d = {}
    for pair in split:
        k, v = [_.strip() for _ in pair.split(':')]
        d[k] = v
    return d

df.dictionary.apply(str2dict).apply(pd.Series)

Or:

pd.concat([df, df.dictionary.apply(str2dict).apply(pd.Series)], axis=1)