Python: Random selection per group

Question

Say that I have a dataframe that looks like:

Name Group_Id
AAA  1
ABC  1
CCC  2
XYZ  2
DEF  3 
YYH  3

How could I randomly select one (or m

Answer 1

for randomly selecting just one row per group try df.sample(frac = 1.0).groupby('Group_Id').head(1)

Answer 2

There are two ways to do this very simply, one without using anything except basic pandas syntax:

df[['x','y']].groupby('x').agg(pd.DataFrame.sample)

This takes 14.4ms with 50k row dataset.

The other, slightly faster method, involves numpy.

df[['x','y']].groupby('x').agg(np.random.choice)

This takes 10.9ms with (the same) 50k row dataset.

Generally speaking, when using pandas, it's preferable to stick with its native syntax. Especially for beginners.

Answer 3

You can use a combination of pandas.groupby, pandas.concat and random.sample:

import pandas as pd
import random

df = pd.DataFrame({
        'Name': ['AAA', 'ABC', 'CCC', 'XYZ', 'DEF', 'YYH'],
        'Group_ID': [1,1,2,2,3,3]
     })

grouped = df.groupby('Group_ID')
df_sampled = pd.concat([d.ix[random.sample(d.index, 1)] for _, d in grouped]).reset_index(drop=True)
print df_sampled

Output:

   Group_ID Name
0         1  AAA
1         2  XYZ
2         3  DEF

Answer 4

size = 2        # sample size
replace = True  # with replacement
fn = lambda obj: obj.loc[np.random.choice(obj.index, size, replace),:]
df.groupby('Group_Id', as_index=False).apply(fn)

Answer 5

From 0.16.x onwards pd.DataFrame.sample provides a way to return a random sample of items from an axis of object.

In [664]: df.groupby('Group_Id').apply(lambda x: x.sample(1)).reset_index(drop=True)
Out[664]:
  Name  Group_Id
0  ABC         1
1  XYZ         2
2  DEF         3

Answer 6

Using random.choice, you can do something like this:

import random
name_group = {'AAA': 1, 'ABC':1, 'CCC':2, 'XYZ':2, 'DEF':3, 'YYH':3}

names = [name for name in name_group.iterkeys()] #create a list out of the keys in the name_group dict

first_name = random.choice(names)
first_group = name_group[first_name]
print first_name, first_group

random.choice(seq)

Return a random element from the non-empty sequence seq. If seq is empty, raises IndexError.