python - Finding count of distinct elements in DataFrame in each column

Question

I am trying to find the count of distinct values in each column using Pandas. This is what I did.

import pandas as pd
import numpy as np

# Generate data.
NROW = 10000
NCOL = 100
df = pd.DataFrame(np.random.randint(1, 100000, (NROW, NCOL)),
                  columns=['col' + x for x in np.arange(NCOL).astype(str)])

I need to count the number of distinct elements for each column, like this:

col0    9538
col1    9505
col2    9524

What would be the most efficient way to do this, as this method will be applied to files which have size greater than 1.5GB?

---

Based upon the answers, df.apply(lambda x: len(x.unique())) is the fastest (notebook).

%timeit df.apply(lambda x: len(x.unique())) 10 loops, best of 3: 49.5 ms per loop %timeit df.nunique() 10 loops, best of 3: 59.7 ms per loop %timeit df.apply(pd.Series.nunique) 10 loops, best of 3: 60.3 ms per loop %timeit df.T.apply(lambda x: x.nunique(), axis=1) 10 loops, best of 3: 60.5 ms per loop

Answer 1

As of pandas 0.20 we can use nunique directly on DataFrames, i.e.:

df.nunique()
a    4
b    5
c    1
dtype: int64

Other legacy options:

You could do a transpose of the df and then using apply call nunique row-wise:

In [205]:
df = pd.DataFrame({'a':[0,1,1,2,3],'b':[1,2,3,4,5],'c':[1,1,1,1,1]})
df

Out[205]:
   a  b  c
0  0  1  1
1  1  2  1
2  1  3  1
3  2  4  1
4  3  5  1

In [206]:
df.T.apply(lambda x: x.nunique(), axis=1)

Out[206]:
a    4
b    5
c    1
dtype: int64

EDIT

As pointed out by @ajcr the transpose is unnecessary:

In [208]:
df.apply(pd.Series.nunique)

Out[208]:
a    4
b    5
c    1
dtype: int64