Pandas load_table string to tuple conversion

Question

I use a lot of tuples in my data files as record keys. When I load a table from text the tuples are strings in the dataframe.

I convert to tuple now, using:

df['KEY'] = df['KEY'].map(lambda x: eval(x))

Is it possible to get the string evaluation automatically?

Luc

A slightly safer/better way is to use [`literal_eval`](http://stackoverflow.com/a/3513475/1240268). I don't think you will be able to do this automatically... — Andy Hayden, Jan 10 '13 at 14:49
Are these all of the same length? Does it make sense to include each item in the tuple as a separate column? — Andy Hayden, Jan 10 '13 at 15:21

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 11 '13 at 16:39

4

You could use converters={'KEY': eval} to make things a bit simpler. It would be possible to add some more optimized version of this internally, too.

answered Jan 11 '13 at 16:39

Wes McKinney

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The suggestion of Wes does the trick, thanks, I will need this in almost all my pandas work... – user1708646 Jan 14 '13 at 14:03
How do we use converters={'KEY': eval} in the code you have mentioned in the question. – Harikrishna Sep 08 '18 at 02:31

Pandas load_table string to tuple conversion

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