• Post author:
  • Post category:Pandas
  • Post last modified:March 27, 2024
  • Reading time:13 mins read
You are currently viewing Pandas – How to Get Cell Value From DataFrame?

You can use DataFrame properties loc[], iloc[], at[], iat[] and other ways to get/select a cell value from a Pandas DataFrame. Pandas DataFrame is structured as rows & columns like a table, and a cell is referred to as a basic block that stores the data. Each cell contains information relating to the combination of the row and column.

loc[] & iloc[] are also used to select rows from pandas DataFrame and select columns from pandas DataFrame.

1. Quick Examples of Get Cell Value of DataFrame

If you are in a hurry, below are some quick examples of how to select cell values from Pandas DataFrame.


# Below are some quick examples 

# Using loc[]. Get cell value by name & index
print(df.loc['r4']['Duration'])
print(df.loc['r4'][2])

# Using iloc[]. Get cell value by index & name
print(df.iloc[3]['Duration'])
print(df.iloc[3,2])


# Using DataFrame.at[]
print(df.at['r4','Duration'])
print(df.at[df.index[3],'Duration'])

# Using DataFrame.iat[]
print(df.iat[3,2])

# Get a cell value
print(df["Duration"].values[3])

# Get cell value from last row
print(df.iloc[-1,2])
print(df.iloc[-1]['Duration'])
print(df.at[df.index[-1],'Duration'])

Now, let’s create a DataFrame with a few rows and columns and execute some examples, and validate the results. Our DataFrame contains column names Courses, Fee, Duration, Discount.


# Create DataFrame
import pandas as pd
technologies = {
     'Courses':["Spark","PySpark","Hadoop","Python","pandas"],
     'Fee' :[24000,25000,25000,24000,24000],
     'Duration':['30day','50days','55days', '40days','60days'],
     'Discount':[1000,2300,1000,1200,2500]
          }
index_labels=['r1','r2','r3','r4','r5']
df = pd.DataFrame(technologies, index=index_labels)
print("Create DataFrame:\n", df)

Yields below output.

Pandas DataFrame Get Value Cell

2. Using DataFrame.loc[] to Get a Cell Value by Column Name

In Pandas, DataFrame.loc[] property is used to get a specific cell value by row & label name(column name). Below all examples return a cell value from the row label r4 and Duration column (3rd column).


# Using loc[]. Get cell value by name & index
print(df.loc['r4']['Duration'])
print(df.loc['r4','Duration'])
print(df.loc['r4'][2])

Yields below output. From the above examples df.loc['r4'] returns a pandas Series.


# Output:
40days

3. Using DataFrame.iloc[] to Get a Cell Value by Column Position

If you want to get a cell value by column number or index position use DataFrame.iloc[], index position starts from 0 to length-1 (index starts from zero). In order to refer last column use -1 as the column position.


# Using iloc[]. Get cell value by index & name
print(df.iloc[3]['Duration'])
print(df.iloc[3][2])
print(df.iloc[3,2])

This returns the same output as above. Note that iloc[] property doesn’t support df.iloc[3,'Duration'], by using this notation, returns an error.

4. Using DataFrame.at[] to select Specific Cell Value by Column Label Name

DataFrame.at[] property is used to access a single cell by row and column label pair. Like loc[] this doesn’t support column by position. This performs better when you want to get a specific cell value from Pandas DataFrame as it uses both row and column labels. Note that at[] property doesn’t support a negative index to refer rows or columns from last.


# Using DataFrame.at[]
print(df.at['r4','Duration'])
print(df.at[df.index[3],'Duration'])

These examples also yield the same output 40days.

5.Using DataFrame.iat[] select Specific Cell Value by Column Position

DataFrame.iat[] is another property to select a specific cell value by row and column position. Using this you can refer to columns only by position but not by a label. This also doesn’t support a negative index or column position.


# Using DataFrame.iat[]
print(df.iat[3,2])

6. Select Cell Value from DataFrame Using df[‘col_name’].values[]

We can use df['col_name'].values[] to get 1×1 DataFrame as a NumPy array, then access the first and only value of that array to get a cell value, for instance, df["Duration"].values[3].


# Get a cell value
print(df["Duration"].values[3])

7. Get Cell Value from Last Row of Pandas DataFrame

If you want to get a specific cell value from the last Row of Pandas DataFrame, use the negative index to point to the rows from the last. For example, Index -1 represents the last row, and -2 for the second row from the last. Similarly, you should also use -1 for the last column.


# Get cell value from last row
print(df.iloc[-1,2])                  # prints 60days
print(df.iloc[-1]['Duration'])        # prints 60days
print(df.at[df.index[-1],'Duration']) # prints 60days

To select the cell value of the last row and last column use df.iloc[-1,-1], this returns 2500. Similarly, you can also try other approaches.

Frequently Asked Questions of Get Cell Value

How do I get the value of a specific cell in a Pandas DataFrame?

You can use the .at or .iat accessor to get the value of a specific cell in a DataFrame. The .at accessor uses row and column labels, while the .iat accessor uses integer-based indices.

How do I get the first (or last) cell value in a Pandas DataFrame?

To get the first cell value in a DataFrame, you can use the .iloc[]attribute of Pandas with index 0 for both the row and column. For the last cell value, you can use -1 as the row index.

How do I get cell values from a Pandas Series (a single column)?

If you have a Pandas Series, you can access cell values using integer-based indexing. For example, value = series.iloc[index]

How can I get the cell values in a specific row or column as a list or array?

To get the cell values in a specific row as a list, you can use .loc[] or .iloc[] along with the .tolist() method. For columns, you can directly access the column and convert it to a list using .tolist()

8. Conclusion

In this article, you have learned how to get or select a specific cell value from pandas DataFrame using the .iloc[], .loc[], .iat[] & .at[] properties. Also, you have learned how to get a specific value from the last row and last column with examples.

Happy Learning !!

References

Naveen Nelamali

Naveen Nelamali (NNK) is a Data Engineer with 20+ years of experience in transforming data into actionable insights. Over the years, He has honed his expertise in designing, implementing, and maintaining data pipelines with frameworks like Apache Spark, PySpark, Pandas, R, Hive and Machine Learning. Naveen journey in the field of data engineering has been a continuous learning, innovation, and a strong commitment to data integrity. In this blog, he shares his experiences with the data as he come across. Follow Naveen @ LinkedIn and Medium

Leave a Reply

This Post Has One Comment

  1. NNK

    Thanks Larsen for pointing it out. You are right and I have corrected it.