Is there a way to copy only the structure (not the data) of a Pandas DataFrame?

Question

I received a DataFrame from somewhere and want to create another DataFrame with the same number and names of columns and rows (indexes). For example, suppose that the origin

Answer 1

That's a job for reindex_like. Start with the original:

df1 = pd.DataFrame([[11, 12], [21, 22]], columns=['c1', 'c2'], index=['i1', 'i2'])

Construct an empty DataFrame and reindex it like df1:

pd.DataFrame().reindex_like(df1)
Out: 
    c1  c2
i1 NaN NaN
i2 NaN NaN   

Answer 2

This has worked for me in pandas 0.22: df2 = pd.DataFrame(index=df.index.delete(slice(None)), columns=df.columns)

Convert types: df2 = df2.astype(df.dtypes)

delete(slice(None)) In case you do not want to keep the values ​​of the indexes.