cartesian product in pandas

Question

I have two pandas dataframes:

from pandas import DataFrame
df1 = DataFrame({\'col1\':[1,2],\'col2\':[3,4]})
df2 = DataFrame({\'col3\':[5,6]})     


        

Answer 1

If you have no overlapping columns, don't want to add one, and the indices of the data frames can be discarded, this may be easier:

df1.index[:] = df2.index[:] = 0
df_cartesian = df1.join(df2, how='outer')
df_cartesian.index[:] = range(len(df_cartesian))

Answer 2

Minimal code needed for this one. Create a common 'key' to cartesian merge the two:

df1['key'] = 0
df2['key'] = 0

df_cartesian = df1.merge(df2, how='outer')

Answer 3

If you have a key that is repeated for each row, then you can produce a cartesian product using merge (like you would in SQL).

from pandas import DataFrame, merge
df1 = DataFrame({'key':[1,1], 'col1':[1,2],'col2':[3,4]})
df2 = DataFrame({'key':[1,1], 'col3':[5,6]})

merge(df1, df2,on='key')[['col1', 'col2', 'col3']]

Output:

   col1  col2  col3
0     1     3     5
1     1     3     6
2     2     4     5
3     2     4     6

See here for the documentation: http://pandas.pydata.org/pandas-docs/stable/merging.html#brief-primer-on-merge-methods-relational-algebra

Answer 4

Use pd.MultiIndex.from_product as an index in an otherwise empty dataframe, then reset its index, and you're done.

a = [1, 2, 3]
b = ["a", "b", "c"]

index = pd.MultiIndex.from_product([a, b], names = ["a", "b"])

pd.DataFrame(index = index).reset_index()

out:

   a  b
0  1  a
1  1  b
2  1  c
3  2  a
4  2  b
5  2  c
6  3  a
7  3  b
8  3  c

Answer 5

You could start by taking the Cartesian product of df1.col1 and df2.col3, then merge back to df1 to get col2.

Here's a general Cartesian product function which takes a dictionary of lists:

def cartesian_product(d):
    index = pd.MultiIndex.from_product(d.values(), names=d.keys())
    return pd.DataFrame(index=index).reset_index()

Apply as:

res = cartesian_product({'col1': df1.col1, 'col3': df2.col3})
pd.merge(res, df1, on='col1')
#  col1 col3 col2
# 0   1    5    3
# 1   1    6    3
# 2   2    5    4
# 3   2    6    4

Answer 6

As an alternative, one can rely on the cartesian product provided by itertools: itertools.product, which avoids creating a temporary key or modifying the index:

import numpy as np 
import pandas as pd 
import itertools

def cartesian(df1, df2):
    rows = itertools.product(df1.iterrows(), df2.iterrows())

    df = pd.DataFrame(left.append(right) for (_, left), (_, right) in rows)
    return df.reset_index(drop=True)

Quick test:

In [46]: a = pd.DataFrame(np.random.rand(5, 3), columns=["a", "b", "c"])

In [47]: b = pd.DataFrame(np.random.rand(5, 3), columns=["d", "e", "f"])    

In [48]: cartesian(a,b)
Out[48]:
           a         b         c         d         e         f
0   0.436480  0.068491  0.260292  0.991311  0.064167  0.715142
1   0.436480  0.068491  0.260292  0.101777  0.840464  0.760616
2   0.436480  0.068491  0.260292  0.655391  0.289537  0.391893
3   0.436480  0.068491  0.260292  0.383729  0.061811  0.773627
4   0.436480  0.068491  0.260292  0.575711  0.995151  0.804567
5   0.469578  0.052932  0.633394  0.991311  0.064167  0.715142
6   0.469578  0.052932  0.633394  0.101777  0.840464  0.760616
7   0.469578  0.052932  0.633394  0.655391  0.289537  0.391893
8   0.469578  0.052932  0.633394  0.383729  0.061811  0.773627
9   0.469578  0.052932  0.633394  0.575711  0.995151  0.804567
10  0.466813  0.224062  0.218994  0.991311  0.064167  0.715142
11  0.466813  0.224062  0.218994  0.101777  0.840464  0.760616
12  0.466813  0.224062  0.218994  0.655391  0.289537  0.391893
13  0.466813  0.224062  0.218994  0.383729  0.061811  0.773627
14  0.466813  0.224062  0.218994  0.575711  0.995151  0.804567
15  0.831365  0.273890  0.130410  0.991311  0.064167  0.715142
16  0.831365  0.273890  0.130410  0.101777  0.840464  0.760616
17  0.831365  0.273890  0.130410  0.655391  0.289537  0.391893
18  0.831365  0.273890  0.130410  0.383729  0.061811  0.773627
19  0.831365  0.273890  0.130410  0.575711  0.995151  0.804567
20  0.447640  0.848283  0.627224  0.991311  0.064167  0.715142
21  0.447640  0.848283  0.627224  0.101777  0.840464  0.760616
22  0.447640  0.848283  0.627224  0.655391  0.289537  0.391893
23  0.447640  0.848283  0.627224  0.383729  0.061811  0.773627
24  0.447640  0.848283  0.627224  0.575711  0.995151  0.804567