Creating dataframe from a dictionary where entries have different lengths

Question

Say I have a dictionary with 10 key-value pairs. Each entry holds a numpy array. However, the length of the array is not the same for all of them.

How can I create a

Answer 1

In Python 3.x:

import pandas as pd
import numpy as np

d = dict( A = np.array([1,2]), B = np.array([1,2,3,4]) )
    
pd.DataFrame(dict([ (k,pd.Series(v)) for k,v in d.items() ]))

Out[7]: 
    A  B
0   1  1
1   2  2
2 NaN  3
3 NaN  4

In Python 2.x:

replace d.items() with d.iteritems().

Answer 2

Both the following lines work perfectly :

pd.DataFrame.from_dict(df, orient='index').transpose() #A

pd.DataFrame(dict([ (k,pd.Series(v)) for k,v in df.items() ])) #B (Better)

But with %timeit on Jupyter, I've got a ratio of 4x speed for B vs A, which is quite impressive especially when working with a huge data set (mainly with a big number of columns/features).

Answer 3

Here's a simple way to do that:

In[20]: my_dict = dict( A = np.array([1,2]), B = np.array([1,2,3,4]) )
In[21]: df = pd.DataFrame.from_dict(my_dict, orient='index')
In[22]: df
Out[22]: 
   0  1   2   3
A  1  2 NaN NaN
B  1  2   3   4
In[23]: df.transpose()
Out[23]: 
    A  B
0   1  1
1   2  2
2 NaN  3
3 NaN  4