Replace values in multiple untitled columns to 0, 1, 2 depending on column

Question

EDITED AS PER COMMENTS

Background: Here is what the current dataframe looks like. The row labels are information texts in original excel file. But I

Answer 1

Here is one way to do it:

1. Define a function to replace the x:

import re

def replaceX(col):
    cond = ~((col == "x") | (col == "X"))
    # Check if the name of the column is undefined
    if not re.match(r'Unnamed: \d+', col.name):
        return col.where(cond, 0)
    else:
        # Check what is the value of the first row
        if col.iloc[0] == "Commented":
            return col.where(cond, 1)
        elif col.iloc[0] == "No comment":
            return col.where(cond, 2)
    return col

Or if your first row don't contain "Commented" or "No comment" for titled columns you can have a solution without regex:

def replaceX(col):
    cond = ~((col == "x") | (col == "X"))
    # Check what is the value of the first row
    if col.iloc[0] == "Commented":
        return col.where(cond, 1)
    elif col.iloc[0] == "No comment":
        return col.where(cond, 2)
    return col.where(cond, 0)

2. Apply this function on the DataFrame:

# Apply the function on every column (axis not specified so equal 0)
df.apply(lambda col: replaceX(col))

Output:

  title Unnamed: 2  Unnamed: 3
0        Commented  No comment
1                             
2     0                      2
3                1            

Documentation:

• Apply: apply a function on every columns/rows depending on the axis
• Where: check where a condition is met on a series, if it is not met, replace with value specified.