How to replace NaNs by preceding values in pandas DataFrame?

Question

Suppose I have a DataFrame with some NaNs:

>>> import pandas as pd
>>> df = pd.DataFrame([[1, 2, 3], [4, None, None], [None, N         


        

Answer 1

ffill now has it's own method pd.DataFrame.ffill

df.ffill()

     0    1    2
0  1.0  2.0  3.0
1  4.0  2.0  3.0
2  4.0  2.0  9.0

Answer 2

One thing that I noticed when trying this solution is that if you have N/A at the start or the end of the array, ffill and bfill don't quite work. You need both.

In [224]: df = pd.DataFrame([None, 1, 2, 3, None, 4, 5, 6, None])

In [225]: df.ffill()
Out[225]:
     0
0  NaN
1  1.0
...
7  6.0
8  6.0

In [226]: df.bfill()
Out[226]:
     0
0  1.0
1  1.0
...
7  6.0
8  NaN

In [227]: df.bfill().ffill()
Out[227]:
     0
0  1.0
1  1.0
...
7  6.0
8  6.0

Answer 3

You can use fillna to remove or replace NaN values.

NaN Remove

import pandas as pd

df = pd.DataFrame([[1, 2, 3], [4, None, None], [None, None, 9]])

df.fillna(method='ffill')
     0    1    2
0  1.0  2.0  3.0
1  4.0  2.0  3.0
2  4.0  2.0  9.0

NaN Replace

df.fillna(0) # 0 means What Value you want to replace 
     0    1    2
0  1.0  2.0  3.0
1  4.0  0.0  0.0
2  0.0  0.0  9.0

Reference pandas.DataFrame.fillna

Answer 4

You could use the fillna method on the DataFrame and specify the method as ffill (forward fill):

>>> df = pd.DataFrame([[1, 2, 3], [4, None, None], [None, None, 9]])
>>> df.fillna(method='ffill')
   0  1  2
0  1  2  3
1  4  2  3
2  4  2  9

This method...

propagate[s] last valid observation forward to next valid

To go the opposite way, there's also a bfill method.

This method doesn't modify the DataFrame inplace - you'll need to rebind the returned DataFrame to a variable or else specify inplace=True:

df.fillna(method='ffill', inplace=True)

Answer 5

Only one column version

• Fill NAN with last valid value

df[column_name].fillna(method='ffill', inplace=True)

• Fill NAN with next valid value

df[column_name].fillna(method='backfill', inplace=True)

Answer 6

In my case, we have time series from different devices but some devices could not send any value during some period. So we should create NA values for every device and time period and after that do fillna.

df = pd.DataFrame([["device1", 1, 'first val of device1'], ["device2", 2, 'first val of device2'], ["device3", 3, 'first val of device3']])
df.pivot(index=1, columns=0, values=2).fillna(method='ffill').unstack().reset_index(name='value')

Result:

        0   1   value
0   device1     1   first val of device1
1   device1     2   first val of device1
2   device1     3   first val of device1
3   device2     1   None
4   device2     2   first val of device2
5   device2     3   first val of device2
6   device3     1   None
7   device3     2   None
8   device3     3   first val of device3