How to get column and row names in DataFrame?

Last Updated : 01 Jul, 2020

While analyzing the real datasets which are often very huge in size, we might need to get the rows or index names and columns name in order to perform some certain operations.

Note: For downloading the nba dataset used in the below examples Click Here

Getting row names in Pandas dataframe

First, let’s create a simple dataframe with nba.csv

# Import pandas package  
import pandas as pd  
    
# making data frame  
data = pd.read_csv("nba.csv")  
    
# calling head() method   
# storing in new variable  
data_top = data.head(10)  
    
# display  
data_top  

Output:

Now let’s try to get the row name from the above dataset.

Method #1: Simply iterate over indices

# Import pandas package  
import pandas as pd  
    
# making data frame  
data = pd.read_csv("nba.csv")  
  
# calling head() method   
# storing in new variable  
data_top = data.head()  
    
# iterating the columns 
for row in data_top.index: 
    print(row, end = " ") 

Output:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Method #2: Using rows with dataframe object

# Import pandas package  
import pandas as pd  
    
# making data frame  
data = pd.read_csv("nba.csv")  
  
# calling head() method   
# storing in new variable  
data_top = data.head()  
    
# list(data_top) or 
list(data_top.index) 

Output:

[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

Method #3: index.values method returns an array of index.

# Import pandas package  
import pandas as pd  
    
# making data frame  
data = pd.read_csv("nba.csv")  
  
# calling head() method   
# storing in new variable  
data_top = data.head()  
    
list(data_top.index.values) 

Output:

[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

Method #4: Using tolist() method with values with given the list of index.

# Import pandas package  
import pandas as pd  
    
# making data frame  
data = pd.read_csv("nba.csv")  
  
# calling head() method   
# storing in new variable  
data_top = data.head()  
    
list(data_top.index.values.tolist()) 

Output:

[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

Method #5: Count number of rows in dataframe

Since we have loaded only 10 top rows of dataframe using head() method, let’s varify total number of rows first.

# iterate the indices and print each one 
for row in data.index: 
    print(row, end = " ") 

Output:

Now, let’s print the total count of index.

# Import pandas package  
import pandas as pd  
    
# making data frame  
data = pd.read_csv("nba.csv")  
  
row_count = 0
  
# iterating over indices 
for col in data.index: 
    row_count += 1
  
# print the row count 
print(row_count) 

Output:

Getting column names in Pandas dataframe

Now let’s try to get the columns name from nba.csv dataset.

Method #1: Simply iterating over columns

# Import pandas package  
import pandas as pd  
    
# making data frame  
data = pd.read_csv("nba.csv")  
  
# iterating the columns 
for col in data.columns: 
    print(col) 

Output:

Method #2: Using columns with dataframe object

# Import pandas package  
import pandas as pd  
    
# making data frame  
data = pd.read_csv("nba.csv")  
    
# list(data) or 
list(data.columns) 

Output:

Method #3: column.values method returs an array of index.

# Import pandas package  
import pandas as pd  
    
# making data frame  
data = pd.read_csv("nba.csv")  
    
list(data.columns.values) 

Output:

Method #4: Using tolist() method with values with given the list of columns.

# Import pandas package  
import pandas as pd  
    
# making data frame  
data = pd.read_csv("nba.csv")  
    
list(data.columns.values.tolist()) 

Output:

Method #5: Using sorted() method

Sorted() method will return the list of columns sorted in alphabetical order.

# Import pandas package  
import pandas as pd  
    
# making data frame  
data = pd.read_csv("nba.csv")  
    
# using sorted() method 
sorted(data) 