In this tutorial, we will learn how to access and modify Pandas Series elements.
Table Of Contents
Accessing Series elements
Series is a labeled one-dimensional array. Therefore, we can access elements in Series either by positional indexing or by label names. Let’s see both the techniques
Accessing Series elements using Positional Indexing
Indexing in Python starts from 0. It means if Series contains N elements then,
- 1st element has index position 0
- 2nd element has index position 1
- 3rd element has index position 2
- …..
- …..
- Nth element has index position N-1
To access elements in Series by the index position, pass the index position in the subscript operator with the Series object. It will return the value at that index position. Let’s see some examples,
import pandas as pd
# Create a Series object from a list
names = pd.Series( ['Mark', 'Rita', 'Vicki', 'Justin', 'John', 'Michal'],
index = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f'])
print(names)
# Access first element of the Series object
first_element = names[0]
print('First Element: ', first_element)
# Access 3rd element of the Series object
third_element = names[2]
print('Third Element: ', third_element)
Output
Frequently Asked:
a Mark b Rita c Vicki d Justin e John f Michal dtype: object First Element: Mark Third Element: Vicki
Here, to access the first element we used the index position 0 and it returned the value ‘Mark’. To access the third value we used the index position 2, and it returned the value ‘Vicki’.
If the index position provided doesn’t exist in the Series, then it will raise a IndexError. For example,
import pandas as pd
# Create a Series object from a list
names = pd.Series( ['Mark', 'Rita', 'Vicki', 'Justin', 'John', 'Michal'],
index = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f'])
print(names)
# Access element at index position 10
print( names[10] )
Error:
IndexError: index 10 is out of bounds for axis 0 with size 6
It raises the IndexError because index position 10 does not exist. There are only six elements in the Series object, and the maximum index position for this Series object can be 5 only.
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Access Series elements using Label names
Series is a labeled one-dimensional array, and each value in the Series has a label value associated with it. To access elements in Series by the label name, pass the label name in the subscript operator of the Series object. It will return the value associated with the label. Let’s see some examples,
import pandas as pd
# Create a Series object from a list
names = pd.Series( ['Mark', 'Rita', 'Vicki', 'Justin', 'John', 'Michal'],
index = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f'])
print('Element with label "d" is : ')
# Access element with label 'd'
print( names['d'] )
Output:
Element with label "d" is : Justin
It returned the value associated with label ‘d’, that is ‘Justin’. If the label provided doesn’t exist in the Series, then it will raise a KeyError. For example,
import pandas as pd
# Create a Series object from a list
names = pd.Series( ['Mark', 'Rita', 'Vicki', 'Justin', 'John', 'Michal'],
index = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f'])
# Access element with label 'k'
print( names['k'] )
Error:
raise KeyError(key) from err KeyError: 'k'
It raise the KeyError because label ‘k’ does not exist in the Series object.
Access subset of Series using Index / Label Range
Using slicing, we can access a range of elements from the series object i.e.
seriesObject[start : end]
It will given an access to Series elements from index position start to end-1. For example,
import pandas as pd
# Create a Series object from a list
names = pd.Series( ['Mark', 'Rita', 'Vicki', 'Justin', 'John', 'Michal'],
index = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f'])
print(names)
# Select elements from index position 1 till 3
few_names = names[1:4]
# Display the subset of Series
print(few_names)
Here, we fetched only three elements from the Series object from i.e from index position 1 till index position 3.
Similarly we can provided the label range instead of index range. For example,
import pandas as pd
# Create a Series object from a list
names = pd.Series( ['Mark', 'Rita', 'Vicki', 'Justin', 'John', 'Michal'],
index = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f'])
print(names)
# Select elements from index label 'b' till label 'e'
few_names = names['b' : 'e']
# Display the subset of Series
print(few_names)
Output:
a Mark b Rita c Vicki d Justin e John f Michal dtype: object b Rita c Vicki d Justin e John dtype: object
It selected the values from label ‘a’ till label ‘e’. Notice the while providing index label range, then end label is also included, whereas in index position range items till end-1 was included.
Access multiple elements of Series by specific index positions
We can also pass a list of index positions in the subscript operator of the Series object. It will return a Series object containing the specified elements only.
import pandas as pd
# Create a Series object from a list
names = pd.Series( ['Mark', 'Rita', 'Vicki', 'Justin', 'John', 'Michal'],
index = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f'])
print(names)
# Select elements at index position 2, 3 and 0 only
few_names = names[[2, 3, 0]]
# Display the subset of Series
print(few_names)
Output
a Mark b Rita c Vicki d Justin e John f Michal dtype: object c Vicki d Justin a Mark dtype: object
It selected the values at index position 2, 3 and 0 only.
Access multiple elements of Series by specific label names
We can also pass a list of label names in the subscript operator of the Series object. It will return a Series object containing the specified elements only.
import pandas as pd
# Create a Series object from a list
names = pd.Series( ['Mark', 'Rita', 'Vicki', 'Justin', 'John', 'Michal'],
index = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f'])
print(names)
# Select elements at index labels 'd', 'e' and 'a'
few_names = names[['d', 'e', 'a']]
# Display the subset of Series
print(few_names)
Output
a Mark b Rita c Vicki d Justin e John f Michal dtype: object d Justin e John a Mark dtype: object
It selected the values with label ‘d’, ‘e’ and ‘a’.
Changing elements in the Series
When we access Series elements using the subscript operator, then can directly use that to change the content of the Series object. Let’s understand this with some examples,
Suppose we have a Series object,
import pandas as pd
# Create a Series object from a list
names = pd.Series( ['Mark', 'Rita', 'Vicki', 'Justin', 'John', 'Michal'],
index = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f'])
print(names)
Output
a Mark b Rita c Vicki d Justin e John f Michal dtype: object
Change single element in Series by index position
Access the element at specified index position using subscript operator and directly assign new value to it. For example,
# Change the 3rd value of Series names[2] = 'Sanjay' # Display the Series print(names)
Output
a Mark b Rita c Sanjay d Justin e John f Michal dtype: object
It changed the third value of Series to ‘Sanjay’.
Change single element in Series by label value
Access the element by specifying the label name using subscript operator and directly assign new value to it. For example,
# Change the value at label 'e' names['e'] = 'Harsha' # Display the Series print(names)
Output
a Mark b Rita c Sanjay d Justin e Harsha f Michal dtype: object
It changed the value at label “e” to ‘Harsha’.
Change multiple element in Series
Access multiple elements using index range or label range using subscript operator and directly assign new values to it. For examples,
# Change the first three values to same value names[0 : 3] = 'John Doe' # Display the Series print(names)
Output
a John Doe b John Doe c John Doe d Justin e Harsha f Michal dtype: object
It changed the first three values. All the values from index position 0 till 2 was set to same value.
Example 2:
# Change the values from label 'a' till 'd' to same value names['a' : 'd'] = 'Smriti' # Display the Series print(names)
Output
a Smriti b Smriti c Smriti d Smriti e Harsha f Michal dtype: object
It changed the values from label ‘a’ till ‘e’ in the Series to the same value.
Summary
We learned how to access and change elements in a Series object in Pandas.
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