python - Column of lists, convert list to string as a new column

Question

I have a dataframe with a column of lists which can be created with:

import pandas as pd
lists={1:[[1,2,12,6,'ABC']],2:[[1000,4,'z','a']]}
#create test dataframe
df=pd.DataFrame.from_dict(lists,orient='index')
df=df.rename(columns={0:'lists'})

The dataframe df looks like:

                lists
1  [1, 2, 12, 6, ABC]
2     [1000, 4, z, a]

I need to create a new column called 'liststring' which takes every element of each list in lists and creates a string with each element separated by commas. The elements of each list can be int, float, or string. So the result would be:

                lists    liststring
1  [1, 2, 12, 6, ABC]  1,2,12,6,ABC
2     [1000, 4, z, a]    1000,4,z,a

I have tried various things, including from Converting a Panda DF List into a string:

df['liststring']=df.lists.apply(lambda x: ', '.join(str(x)))

but unfortunately the result takes every character and seperates by comma:

                lists                                         liststring
1  [1, 2, 12, 6, ABC]  [, 1, ,,  , 2, ,,  , 1, 2, ,,  , 6, ,,  , ', A...
2     [1000, 4, z, a]  [, 1, 0, 0, 0, ,,  , 4, ,,  , ', z, ', ,,  , '...

Thanks in advance for the help!

Answer 1

List Comprehension

If performance is important, I strongly recommend this solution and I can explain why.

df['liststring'] = [','.join(map(str, l)) for l in df['lists']]
df

                lists    liststring
0  [1, 2, 12, 6, ABC]  1,2,12,6,ABC
1     [1000, 4, z, a]    1000,4,z,a

You can extend this to more complicated use cases using a function.

def try_join(l):
    try:
        return ','.join(map(str, l))
    except TypeError:
        return np.nan

df['liststring'] = [try_join(l) for l in df['lists']]

---

Series.apply/Series.agg with ','.join

You need to convert your list items to strings first, that's where the map comes in handy.

df['liststring'] = df['lists'].apply(lambda x: ','.join(map(str, x)))

Or,

df['liststring'] = df['lists'].agg(lambda x: ','.join(map(str, x)))

<!- >

df
                lists    liststring
0  [1, 2, 12, 6, ABC]  1,2,12,6,ABC
1     [1000, 4, z, a]    1000,4,z,a

---

pd.DataFrame constructor with DataFrame.agg

A non-loopy/non-lambda solution.

df['liststring'] = (pd.DataFrame(df.lists.tolist())
                      .fillna('')
                      .astype(str)
                      .agg(','.join, 1)
                      .str.strip(','))

df
                lists    liststring
0  [1, 2, 12, 6, ABC]  1,2,12,6,ABC
1     [1000, 4, z, a]    1000,4,z,a