Pandas – How to flatten a hierarchical index in columns

Answer #1:

I think the easiest way to do this would be to set the columns to the top level:

df.columns = df.columns.get_level_values(0)

Note: if the to level has a name you can also access it by this, rather than 0.

.

If you want to combine/join your MultiIndex into one Index (assuming you have just string entries in your columns) you could:

df.columns = [' '.join(col).strip() for col in df.columns.values]

Note: we must strip the whitespace for when there is no second index.

In [11]: [' '.join(col).strip() for col in df.columns.values]
Out[11]:
['USAF',
 'WBAN',
 'day',
 'month',
 's_CD sum',
 's_CL sum',
 's_CNT sum',
 's_PC sum',
 'tempf amax',
 'tempf amin',
 'year']

Answer #2:

pd.DataFrame(df.to_records()) # multiindex become columns and new index is integers only

Answer #3:

All of the current answers on this thread must have been a bit dated. As of pandas version 0.24.0, the .to_flat_index() does what you need.

From panda’s own documentation:

MultiIndex.to_flat_index()

Convert a MultiIndex to an Index of Tuples containing the level values.

A simple example from its documentation:

import pandas as pd
print(pd.__version__) # '0.23.4'
index = pd.MultiIndex.from_product(
        [['foo', 'bar'], ['baz', 'qux']],
        names=['a', 'b'])
print(index)
# MultiIndex(levels=[['bar', 'foo'], ['baz', 'qux']],
#           codes=[[1, 1, 0, 0], [0, 1, 0, 1]],
#           names=['a', 'b'])

Applying to_flat_index():

index.to_flat_index()
# Index([('foo', 'baz'), ('foo', 'qux'), ('bar', 'baz'), ('bar', 'qux')], dtype='object')

Using it to replace existing pandas column

An example of how you’d use it on dat, which is a DataFrame with a MultiIndex column:

dat = df.loc[:,['name','workshop_period','class_size']].groupby(['name','workshop_period']).describe()
print(dat.columns)
# MultiIndex(levels=[['class_size'], ['count', 'mean', 'std', 'min', '25%', '50%', '75%', 'max']],
#            codes=[[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]])
dat.columns = dat.columns.to_flat_index()
print(dat.columns)
# Index([('class_size', 'count'),  ('class_size', 'mean'),
#     ('class_size', 'std'),   ('class_size', 'min'),
#     ('class_size', '25%'),   ('class_size', '50%'),
#     ('class_size', '75%'),   ('class_size', 'max')],
#  dtype='object')

Answer #4:

Andy Hayden’s answer is certainly the easiest way — if you want to avoid duplicate column labels you need to tweak a bit

In [34]: df
Out[34]:
     USAF   WBAN  day  month  s_CD  s_CL  s_CNT  s_PC  tempf         year
                               sum   sum    sum   sum   amax   amin
0  702730  26451    1      1    12     0     13     1  30.92  24.98  1993
1  702730  26451    2      1    13     0     13     0  32.00  24.98  1993
2  702730  26451    3      1     2    10     13     1  23.00   6.98  1993
3  702730  26451    4      1    12     0     13     1  10.04   3.92  1993
4  702730  26451    5      1    10     0     13     3  19.94  10.94  1993
In [35]: mi = df.columns
In [36]: mi
Out[36]:
MultiIndex
[(USAF, ), (WBAN, ), (day, ), (month, ), (s_CD, sum), (s_CL, sum), (s_CNT, sum), (s_PC, sum), (tempf, amax), (tempf, amin), (year, )]
In [37]: mi.tolist()
Out[37]:
[('USAF', ''),
 ('WBAN', ''),
 ('day', ''),
 ('month', ''),
 ('s_CD', 'sum'),
 ('s_CL', 'sum'),
 ('s_CNT', 'sum'),
 ('s_PC', 'sum'),
 ('tempf', 'amax'),
 ('tempf', 'amin'),
 ('year', '')]
In [38]: ind = pd.Index([e[0] + e[1] for e in mi.tolist()])
In [39]: ind
Out[39]: Index([USAF, WBAN, day, month, s_CDsum, s_CLsum, s_CNTsum, s_PCsum, tempfamax, tempfamin, year], dtype=object)
In [40]: df.columns = ind
In [46]: df
Out[46]: 
     USAF   WBAN  day  month  s_CDsum  s_CLsum  s_CNTsum  s_PCsum  tempfamax  tempfamin  
0  702730  26451    1      1       12        0        13        1      30.92      24.98   
1  702730  26451    2      1       13        0        13        0      32.00      24.98   
2  702730  26451    3      1        2       10        13        1      23.00       6.98   
3  702730  26451    4      1       12        0        13        1      10.04       3.92   
4  702730  26451    5      1       10        0        13        3      19.94      10.94   
   year  
0  1993  
1  1993  
2  1993  
3  1993  
4  1993

Answer #5:

df.columns = ['_'.join(tup).rstrip('_') for tup in df.columns.values]

Answer #6:

And if you want to retain any of the aggregation info from the second level of the multiindex you can try this:

In [1]: new_cols = [''.join(t) for t in df.columns]
Out[1]:
['USAF',
 'WBAN',
 'day',
 'month',
 's_CDsum',
 's_CLsum',
 's_CNTsum',
 's_PCsum',
 'tempfamax',
 'tempfamin',
 'year']
In [2]: df.columns = new_cols

Answer #7:

The most pythonic way to do this to use map function.

df.columns = df.columns.map(' '.join).str.strip()

Output print(df.columns):

Index(['USAF', 'WBAN', 'day', 'month', 's_CD sum', 's_CL sum', 's_CNT sum',
       's_PC sum', 'tempf amax', 'tempf amin', 'year'],
      dtype='object')

Update using Python 3.6+ with f string:

df.columns = [f'{f} {s}' if s != '' else f'{f}'
              for f, s in df.columns]
print(df.columns)

Output:

Index(['USAF', 'WBAN', 'day', 'month', 's_CD sum', 's_CL sum', 's_CNT sum',
       's_PC sum', 'tempf amax', 'tempf amin', 'year'],
      dtype='object')

Answer #8:

The easiest and most intuitive solution for me was to combine the column names using get_level_values. This prevents duplicate column names when you do more than one aggregation on the same column:

level_one = df.columns.get_level_values(0).astype(str)
level_two = df.columns.get_level_values(1).astype(str)
df.columns = level_one + level_two

If you want a separator between columns, you can do this. This will return the same thing as Seiji Armstrong’s comment on the accepted answer that only includes underscores for columns with values in both index levels:

level_one = df.columns.get_level_values(0).astype(str)
level_two = df.columns.get_level_values(1).astype(str)
column_separator = ['_' if x != '' else '' for x in level_two]
df.columns = level_one + column_separator + level_two

I know this does the same thing as Andy Hayden’s great answer above, but I think it is a bit more intuitive this way and is easier to remember (so I don’t have to keep referring to this thread), especially for novice pandas users.

This method is also more extensible in the case where you may have 3 column levels.

level_one = df.columns.get_level_values(0).astype(str)
level_two = df.columns.get_level_values(1).astype(str)
level_three = df.columns.get_level_values(2).astype(str)
df.columns = level_one + level_two + level_three