index and column for the max value in pandas dataframe

Question

I have a python dataframe df with five columns and five rows. I would like to get the row and column name of the max three values

Example:

df = 

  A            


        

Answer 1

You could use unstack before sorting:

>>> df
    A   B   C   D   E   F
1   0   1   2   3   4   5
2   6   7   8   9  10  11
3  12  13  14  15  16  17
4  18  19  20  21  22  23
5  24  25  26  27  28  29
>>> df.unstack()
A  1     0
   2     6
   3    12
   4    18
   5    24
B  1     1
   2     7
   3    13
   4    19
   5    25
[...]
F  1     5
   2    11
   3    17
   4    23
   5    29

and so

>>> df2 = df.unstack().copy()
>>> df2.sort()
>>> df2[-3:]
D  5    27
E  5    28
F  5    29
>>> df2[-3:].index
MultiIndex
[(D, 5.0), (E, 5.0), (F, 5.0)]

or even

>>> df.unstack()[df.unstack().argsort()].index[-3:]
MultiIndex
[(D, 5.0), (E, 5.0), (F, 5.0)]

[I didn't bother reversing the order: sticking [::-1] at the end should do it.]