Check if string is in a pandas dataframe

Question

I would like to see if a particular string exists in a particular column within my dataframe.

I\'m getting the error

ValueError: The truth v

Answer 1

it seems that the OP meant to find out whether the string 'Mel' exists in a particular column, not contained in a column, therefore the use of contains is not needed, and is not efficient. A simple equals-to is enough:

(a['Names']=='Mel').any()

Answer 2

Pandas seem to be recommending df.to_numpy since the other methods still raise a FutureWarning: https://pandas.pydata.org/pandas-docs/stable/reference/api/pandas.DataFrame.to_numpy.html#pandas.DataFrame.to_numpy

So, an alternative that would work int this case is:

b=a['Names']
c = b.to_numpy().tolist()
if 'Mel' in c:
     print("Mel is in the dataframe column Names")

Answer 3

a['Names'].str.contains('Mel') will return an indicator vector of boolean values of size len(BabyDataSet)

Therefore, you can use

mel_count=a['Names'].str.contains('Mel').sum()
if mel_count>0:
    print ("There are {m} Mels".format(m=mel_count))

Or any(), if you don't care how many records match your query

if a['Names'].str.contains('Mel').any():
    print ("Mel is there")

Answer 4

You should use any()

In [98]: a['Names'].str.contains('Mel').any()
Out[98]: True

In [99]: if a['Names'].str.contains('Mel').any():
   ....:     print "Mel is there"
   ....:
Mel is there

a['Names'].str.contains('Mel') gives you a series of bool values

In [100]: a['Names'].str.contains('Mel')
Out[100]:
0    False
1    False
2    False
3    False
4     True
Name: Names, dtype: bool

Answer 5

You should check the value of your line of code like adding checking length of it.

if(len(a['Names'].str.contains('Mel'))>0):
    print("Name Present")

Answer 6

If there is any chance that you will need to search for empty strings,

    a['Names'].str.contains('') 

will NOT work, as it will always return True.

Instead, use

    if '' in a["Names"].values

to accurately reflect whether or not a string is in a Series, including the edge case of searching for an empty string.