I assume your array looks like:
|(HUE)(VALUE)(CLASS)
row/col| 0 1 2
-------+-----------------
0 | 0 1 2
1 | 3 4 5
2 | 6 7 8
. | . . .
. | . . .
3599999| . . .
And here is the sample code. For simplicity I changed the size 3600000 to 5.
a = np.array(xrange(5 * 3))
a.shape = (5, 3)
Now array a look like this:
array([[ 0, 1, 2],
[ 3, 4, 5],
[ 6, 7, 8],
[ 9, 10, 11],
[12, 13, 14]])
If you want row with HUE=9, do like this:
a[np.where(a[:,0] == 9)]
#array([[ 9, 10, 11]])
If you want row with VALUE=4, do like this:
a[np.where(a[:,1] == 4)]
#array([[3, 4, 5]])
If you want row with HUE=0 and VALUE=1, do like this:
a[np.where((a[:,0] == 0) * (a[:,1] == 1))]
#array([[0, 1, 2]])
Answer from Kei Minagawa on Stack OverflowI assume your array looks like:
|(HUE)(VALUE)(CLASS)
row/col| 0 1 2
-------+-----------------
0 | 0 1 2
1 | 3 4 5
2 | 6 7 8
. | . . .
. | . . .
3599999| . . .
And here is the sample code. For simplicity I changed the size 3600000 to 5.
a = np.array(xrange(5 * 3))
a.shape = (5, 3)
Now array a look like this:
array([[ 0, 1, 2],
[ 3, 4, 5],
[ 6, 7, 8],
[ 9, 10, 11],
[12, 13, 14]])
If you want row with HUE=9, do like this:
a[np.where(a[:,0] == 9)]
#array([[ 9, 10, 11]])
If you want row with VALUE=4, do like this:
a[np.where(a[:,1] == 4)]
#array([[3, 4, 5]])
If you want row with HUE=0 and VALUE=1, do like this:
a[np.where((a[:,0] == 0) * (a[:,1] == 1))]
#array([[0, 1, 2]])
Try this code:
x[x[:, 2] == class_number[:, :2]
where x is np.ndarray
x[:, 2] == class_number
contains true/false that means whether the last is class_number or not.
You need to take a look at: Boolean indexing in http://wiki.scipy.org/Cookbook/Indexing
Moved from comment.
You can use np.isin() to check which elements in the first column are in the desired values list. You can then use the output as a mask.
import numpy as np
my_array = np.array([[1,55,4],
[2,2,3],
[3,90,2],
[4,65,1]])
desired_values = np.array([2,3,4])
mask = np.isin(element = my_array[:,0],test_elements = desired_values)
desired_array = my_array[mask]
print(desired_array)
output
array([[ 2, 2, 3],
[ 3, 90, 2],
[ 4, 65, 1]])
Edit: numpy.isin vs for-loop
@Furas suggested a for-loop solution. That approach works and is perhaps more intuitive, at least in that one does not have to research the many esoteric functions of Numpy.
My first reaction is to emphasize that Numpy operations tend to be faster than for-loops. However, the details are a little more nuanced. For-loops seem to be slightly faster for small arrays, but their time costs increase significantly faster as the size of the array increases.
Comparisons for relatively small test arrays
The first graph compares the computation times for np.isin() to those from the for-loop. The number of rows in my_array are presented along the x-axis. Their values are 2, 4, 6, ... 32.

The above graph shows that the computation time for the for-loop seems to increase linearly with the growth of the tested array. The for-loop is faster until the number of rows is approximately 10.
Comparisons for larger test arrays
The second graph shows a comparison similar to the first graph, but examines computation times when the number of rows in my_array is 2, 4, 8, 16, ... 1024.
The above graph shows that np.isin() is significantly faster and more appropriate for larger problems.
Code for reproduction
The data to recreate the above graphs may be generated with the following code.
import numpy as np
count_list = [2**x for x in range(2,11)]
isin_time_means = []
loop_time_means = []
for count in count_list:
my_array = np.random.randint(low=-10,high=10,size=(count,5))
desired_values = np.random.randint(low=-10,high = 10,size=(10,))
a = %timeit -o np.isin(my_array[:,0],desired_values)
b = %timeit -o [x in desired_values for x in my_array[:,0]]
isin_time_means.append(np.mean(a.timings))
loop_time_means.append(np.mean(b.timings))
You can always use for-loop to check every value separatelly
mask = [x in desiredValues for x in myArray[:,0]]
desired_array = myArray[mask]
Full code:
import numpy as np
myArray = np.array([[1,55,4],
[2,2,3],
[3,90,2],
[4,65,1]])
desiredValues = [2,3,4]
mask = [x in desiredValues for x in myArray[:,0]]
desired_array = myArray[mask]
print(desired_array)
python - Selecting specific rows and columns from NumPy array - Stack Overflow
Select certain rows (condition met), but only some columns in Python/Numpy - Stack Overflow
python - Numpy select rows based on condition - Stack Overflow
python - Selecting rows from a NumPy ndarray - Stack Overflow
As Toan suggests, a simple hack would be to just select the rows first, and then select the columns over that.
>>> a[[0,1,3], :] # Returns the rows you want
array([[ 0, 1, 2, 3],
[ 4, 5, 6, 7],
[12, 13, 14, 15]])
>>> a[[0,1,3], :][:, [0,2]] # Selects the columns you want as well
array([[ 0, 2],
[ 4, 6],
[12, 14]])
[Edit] The built-in method: np.ix_
I recently discovered that numpy gives you an in-built one-liner to doing exactly what @Jaime suggested, but without having to use broadcasting syntax (which suffers from lack of readability). From the docs:
Using ix_ one can quickly construct index arrays that will index the cross product.
a[np.ix_([1,3],[2,5])]returns the array[[a[1,2] a[1,5]], [a[3,2] a[3,5]]].
So you use it like this:
>>> a = np.arange(20).reshape((5,4))
>>> a[np.ix_([0,1,3], [0,2])]
array([[ 0, 2],
[ 4, 6],
[12, 14]])
And the way it works is that it takes care of aligning arrays the way Jaime suggested, so that broadcasting happens properly:
>>> np.ix_([0,1,3], [0,2])
(array([[0],
[1],
[3]]), array([[0, 2]]))
Also, as MikeC says in a comment, np.ix_ has the advantage of returning a view, which my first (pre-edit) answer did not. This means you can now assign to the indexed array:
>>> a[np.ix_([0,1,3], [0,2])] = -1
>>> a
array([[-1, 1, -1, 3],
[-1, 5, -1, 7],
[ 8, 9, 10, 11],
[-1, 13, -1, 15],
[16, 17, 18, 19]])
Fancy indexing requires you to provide all indices for each dimension. You are providing 3 indices for the first one, and only 2 for the second one, hence the error. You want to do something like this:
>>> a[[[0, 0], [1, 1], [3, 3]], [[0,2], [0,2], [0, 2]]]
array([[ 0, 2],
[ 4, 6],
[12, 14]])
That is of course a pain to write, so you can let broadcasting help you:
>>> a[[[0], [1], [3]], [0, 2]]
array([[ 0, 2],
[ 4, 6],
[12, 14]])
This is much simpler to do if you index with arrays, not lists:
>>> row_idx = np.array([0, 1, 3])
>>> col_idx = np.array([0, 2])
>>> a[row_idx[:, None], col_idx]
array([[ 0, 2],
[ 4, 6],
[12, 14]])
>>> a = np.array([[1,2,3,4],[5,6,7,8],[9,10,11,12]])
>>> a
array([[ 1, 2, 3, 4],
[ 5, 6, 7, 8],
[ 9, 10, 11, 12]])
>>> a[a[:,0] > 3] # select rows where first column is greater than 3
array([[ 5, 6, 7, 8],
[ 9, 10, 11, 12]])
>>> a[a[:,0] > 3][:,np.array([True, True, False, True])] # select columns
array([[ 5, 6, 8],
[ 9, 10, 12]])
# fancier equivalent of the previous
>>> a[np.ix_(a[:,0] > 3, np.array([True, True, False, True]))]
array([[ 5, 6, 8],
[ 9, 10, 12]])
For an explanation of the obscure np.ix_(), see https://stackoverflow.com/a/13599843/4323
Finally, we can simplify by giving the list of column numbers instead of the tedious boolean mask:
>>> a[np.ix_(a[:,0] > 3, (0,1,3))]
array([[ 5, 6, 8],
[ 9, 10, 12]])
If you do not want to use boolean positions but the indexes, you can write it this way:
A[:, [0, 2, 3]][A[:, 1] == i]
Going back to your example:
>>> A = np.array([[1,2,3,4],[6,1,3,4],[3,2,5,6]])
>>> print A
[[1 2 3 4]
[6 1 3 4]
[3 2 5 6]]
>>> i = 2
>>> print A[:, [0, 2, 3]][A[:, 1] == i]
[[1 3 4]
[3 5 6]]
Seriously,
Use a boolean mask:
mask = (z[:, 0] == 6)
z[mask, :]
This is much more efficient than np.where because you can use the boolean mask directly, without having the overhead of converting it to an array of indices first.
One liner:
z[z[:, 0] == 6, :]
Program:
import numpy as np
np_array = np.array([[0,4],[0,5],[3,5],[6,8],[9,1],[6,1]])
rows=np.where(np_array[:,0]==6)
print(np_array[rows])
Output:
[[6 8]
[6 1]]
And If You Want to Get Into 2d List use
np_array[rows].tolist()
Output of 2d List
[[6, 8], [6, 1]]
The following solution should be faster than Amnon's solution as wanted gets larger:
# Much faster look up than with lists, for larger lists:
wanted_set = set(wanted)
@numpy.vectorize
def selected(elmt): return elmt in wanted_set
# Or: selected = numpy.vectorize(wanted_set.__contains__)
print test[selected(test[:, 1])]
In fact, it has the advantage of searching through the test array only once (instead of as many as len(wanted) times as in Amnon's answer). It also uses Python's built-in fast element look up in sets, which are much faster for this than lists. It is also fast because it uses Numpy's fast loops. You also get the optimization of the in operator: once a wanted element matches, the remaining elements do not have to be tested (as opposed to the "logical or" approach of Amnon, were all the elements in wanted are tested no matter what).
Alternatively, you could use the following one-liner, which also goes through your array only once:
test[numpy.apply_along_axis(lambda x: x[1] in wanted, 1, test)]
This is much much slower, though, as this extracts the element in the second column at each iteration (instead of doing it in one pass, as in the first solution of this answer).
test[numpy.logical_or.reduce([test[:,1] == x for x in wanted])]
The result should be faster than the original version since NumPy's doing the inner loops instead of Python.
To select rows whose column value equals a scalar, some_value, use ==:
df.loc[df['column_name'] == some_value]
To select rows whose column value is in an iterable, some_values, use isin:
df.loc[df['column_name'].isin(some_values)]
Combine multiple conditions with &:
df.loc[(df['column_name'] >= A) & (df['column_name'] <= B)]
Note the parentheses. Due to Python's operator precedence rules, & binds more tightly than <= and >=. Thus, the parentheses in the last example are necessary. Without the parentheses
df['column_name'] >= A & df['column_name'] <= B
is parsed as
df['column_name'] >= (A & df['column_name']) <= B
which results in a Truth value of a Series is ambiguous error.
To select rows whose column value does not equal some_value, use !=:
df.loc[df['column_name'] != some_value]
The isin returns a boolean Series, so to select rows whose value is not in some_values, negate the boolean Series using ~:
df = df.loc[~df['column_name'].isin(some_values)] # .loc is not in-place replacement
For example,
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
df = pd.DataFrame({'A': 'foo bar foo bar foo bar foo foo'.split(),
'B': 'one one two three two two one three'.split(),
'C': np.arange(8), 'D': np.arange(8) * 2})
print(df)
# A B C D
# 0 foo one 0 0
# 1 bar one 1 2
# 2 foo two 2 4
# 3 bar three 3 6
# 4 foo two 4 8
# 5 bar two 5 10
# 6 foo one 6 12
# 7 foo three 7 14
print(df.loc[df['A'] == 'foo'])
yields
A B C D
0 foo one 0 0
2 foo two 2 4
4 foo two 4 8
6 foo one 6 12
7 foo three 7 14
If you have multiple values you want to include, put them in a
list (or more generally, any iterable) and use isin:
print(df.loc[df['B'].isin(['one','three'])])
yields
A B C D
0 foo one 0 0
1 bar one 1 2
3 bar three 3 6
6 foo one 6 12
7 foo three 7 14
Note, however, that if you wish to do this many times, it is more efficient to
make an index first, and then use df.loc:
df = df.set_index(['B'])
print(df.loc['one'])
yields
A C D
B
one foo 0 0
one bar 1 2
one foo 6 12
or, to include multiple values from the index use df.index.isin:
df.loc[df.index.isin(['one','two'])]
yields
A C D
B
one foo 0 0
one bar 1 2
two foo 2 4
two foo 4 8
two bar 5 10
one foo 6 12
There are several ways to select rows from a Pandas dataframe:
- Boolean indexing (
df[df['col'] == value] ) - Positional indexing (
df.iloc[...]) - Label indexing (
df.xs(...)) df.query(...)API
Below I show you examples of each, with advice when to use certain techniques. Assume our criterion is column 'A' == 'foo'
(Note on performance: For each base type, we can keep things simple by using the Pandas API or we can venture outside the API, usually into NumPy, and speed things up.)
Setup
The first thing we'll need is to identify a condition that will act as our criterion for selecting rows. We'll start with the OP's case column_name == some_value, and include some other common use cases.
Borrowing from @unutbu:
import pandas as pd, numpy as np
df = pd.DataFrame({'A': 'foo bar foo bar foo bar foo foo'.split(),
'B': 'one one two three two two one three'.split(),
'C': np.arange(8), 'D': np.arange(8) * 2})
1. Boolean indexing
... Boolean indexing requires finding the true value of each row's 'A' column being equal to 'foo', then using those truth values to identify which rows to keep. Typically, we'd name this series, an array of truth values, mask. We'll do so here as well.
mask = df['A'] == 'foo'
We can then use this mask to slice or index the data frame
df[mask]
A B C D
0 foo one 0 0
2 foo two 2 4
4 foo two 4 8
6 foo one 6 12
7 foo three 7 14
This is one of the simplest ways to accomplish this task and if performance or intuitiveness isn't an issue, this should be your chosen method. However, if performance is a concern, then you might want to consider an alternative way of creating the mask.
2. Positional indexing
Positional indexing (df.iloc[...]) has its use cases, but this isn't one of them. In order to identify where to slice, we first need to perform the same boolean analysis we did above. This leaves us performing one extra step to accomplish the same task.
mask = df['A'] == 'foo'
pos = np.flatnonzero(mask)
df.iloc[pos]
A B C D
0 foo one 0 0
2 foo two 2 4
4 foo two 4 8
6 foo one 6 12
7 foo three 7 14
3. Label indexing
Label indexing can be very handy, but in this case, we are again doing more work for no benefit
df.set_index('A', append=True, drop=False).xs('foo', level=1)
A B C D
0 foo one 0 0
2 foo two 2 4
4 foo two 4 8
6 foo one 6 12
7 foo three 7 14
4. df.query() API
pd.DataFrame.query is a very elegant/intuitive way to perform this task, but is often slower. However, if you pay attention to the timings below, for large data, the query is very efficient. More so than the standard approach and of similar magnitude as my best suggestion.
df.query('A == "foo"')
A B C D
0 foo one 0 0
2 foo two 2 4
4 foo two 4 8
6 foo one 6 12
7 foo three 7 14
My preference is to use the Boolean mask
Actual improvements can be made by modifying how we create our Boolean mask.
mask alternative 1
Use the underlying NumPy array and forgo the overhead of creating another pd.Series
mask = df['A'].values == 'foo'
I'll show more complete time tests at the end, but just take a look at the performance gains we get using the sample data frame. First, we look at the difference in creating the mask
%timeit mask = df['A'].values == 'foo'
%timeit mask = df['A'] == 'foo'
5.84 µs ± 195 ns per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100000 loops each)
166 µs ± 4.45 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 10000 loops each)
Evaluating the mask with the NumPy array is ~ 30 times faster. This is partly due to NumPy evaluation often being faster. It is also partly due to the lack of overhead necessary to build an index and a corresponding pd.Series object.
Next, we'll look at the timing for slicing with one mask versus the other.
mask = df['A'].values == 'foo'
%timeit df[mask]
mask = df['A'] == 'foo'
%timeit df[mask]
219 µs ± 12.3 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 1000 loops each)
239 µs ± 7.03 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 1000 loops each)
The performance gains aren't as pronounced. We'll see if this holds up over more robust testing.
mask alternative 2
We could have reconstructed the data frame as well. There is a big caveat when reconstructing a dataframe—you must take care of the dtypes when doing so!
Instead of df[mask] we will do this
pd.DataFrame(df.values[mask], df.index[mask], df.columns).astype(df.dtypes)
If the data frame is of mixed type, which our example is, then when we get df.values the resulting array is of dtype object and consequently, all columns of the new data frame will be of dtype object. Thus requiring the astype(df.dtypes) and killing any potential performance gains.
%timeit df[m]
%timeit pd.DataFrame(df.values[mask], df.index[mask], df.columns).astype(df.dtypes)
216 µs ± 10.4 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 1000 loops each)
1.43 ms ± 39.6 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 1000 loops each)
However, if the data frame is not of mixed type, this is a very useful way to do it.
Given
np.random.seed([3,1415])
d1 = pd.DataFrame(np.random.randint(10, size=(10, 5)), columns=list('ABCDE'))
d1
A B C D E
0 0 2 7 3 8
1 7 0 6 8 6
2 0 2 0 4 9
3 7 3 2 4 3
4 3 6 7 7 4
5 5 3 7 5 9
6 8 7 6 4 7
7 6 2 6 6 5
8 2 8 7 5 8
9 4 7 6 1 5
%%timeit
mask = d1['A'].values == 7
d1[mask]
179 µs ± 8.73 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 10000 loops each)
Versus
%%timeit
mask = d1['A'].values == 7
pd.DataFrame(d1.values[mask], d1.index[mask], d1.columns)
87 µs ± 5.12 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 10000 loops each)
We cut the time in half.
mask alternative 3
@unutbu also shows us how to use pd.Series.isin to account for each element of df['A'] being in a set of values. This evaluates to the same thing if our set of values is a set of one value, namely 'foo'. But it also generalizes to include larger sets of values if needed. Turns out, this is still pretty fast even though it is a more general solution. The only real loss is in intuitiveness for those not familiar with the concept.
mask = df['A'].isin(['foo'])
df[mask]
A B C D
0 foo one 0 0
2 foo two 2 4
4 foo two 4 8
6 foo one 6 12
7 foo three 7 14
However, as before, we can utilize NumPy to improve performance while sacrificing virtually nothing. We'll use np.in1d
mask = np.in1d(df['A'].values, ['foo'])
df[mask]
A B C D
0 foo one 0 0
2 foo two 2 4
4 foo two 4 8
6 foo one 6 12
7 foo three 7 14
Timing
I'll include other concepts mentioned in other posts as well for reference.
Code Below
Each column in this table represents a different length data frame over which we test each function. Each column shows relative time taken, with the fastest function given a base index of 1.0.
res.div(res.min())
10 30 100 300 1000 3000 10000 30000
mask_standard 2.156872 1.850663 2.034149 2.166312 2.164541 3.090372 2.981326 3.131151
mask_standard_loc 1.879035 1.782366 1.988823 2.338112 2.361391 3.036131 2.998112 2.990103
mask_with_values 1.010166 1.000000 1.005113 1.026363 1.028698 1.293741 1.007824 1.016919
mask_with_values_loc 1.196843 1.300228 1.000000 1.000000 1.038989 1.219233 1.037020 1.000000
query 4.997304 4.765554 5.934096 4.500559 2.997924 2.397013 1.680447 1.398190
xs_label 4.124597 4.272363 5.596152 4.295331 4.676591 5.710680 6.032809 8.950255
mask_with_isin 1.674055 1.679935 1.847972 1.724183 1.345111 1.405231 1.253554 1.264760
mask_with_in1d 1.000000 1.083807 1.220493 1.101929 1.000000 1.000000 1.000000 1.144175
You'll notice that the fastest times seem to be shared between mask_with_values and mask_with_in1d.
res.T.plot(loglog=True)

Functions
def mask_standard(df):
mask = df['A'] == 'foo'
return df[mask]
def mask_standard_loc(df):
mask = df['A'] == 'foo'
return df.loc[mask]
def mask_with_values(df):
mask = df['A'].values == 'foo'
return df[mask]
def mask_with_values_loc(df):
mask = df['A'].values == 'foo'
return df.loc[mask]
def query(df):
return df.query('A == "foo"')
def xs_label(df):
return df.set_index('A', append=True, drop=False).xs('foo', level=-1)
def mask_with_isin(df):
mask = df['A'].isin(['foo'])
return df[mask]
def mask_with_in1d(df):
mask = np.in1d(df['A'].values, ['foo'])
return df[mask]
Testing
res = pd.DataFrame(
index=[
'mask_standard', 'mask_standard_loc', 'mask_with_values', 'mask_with_values_loc',
'query', 'xs_label', 'mask_with_isin', 'mask_with_in1d'
],
columns=[10, 30, 100, 300, 1000, 3000, 10000, 30000],
dtype=float
)
for j in res.columns:
d = pd.concat([df] * j, ignore_index=True)
for i in res.index:a
stmt = '{}(d)'.format(i)
setp = 'from __main__ import d, {}'.format(i)
res.at[i, j] = timeit(stmt, setp, number=50)
Special Timing
Looking at the special case when we have a single non-object dtype for the entire data frame.
Code Below
spec.div(spec.min())
10 30 100 300 1000 3000 10000 30000
mask_with_values 1.009030 1.000000 1.194276 1.000000 1.236892 1.095343 1.000000 1.000000
mask_with_in1d 1.104638 1.094524 1.156930 1.072094 1.000000 1.000000 1.040043 1.027100
reconstruct 1.000000 1.142838 1.000000 1.355440 1.650270 2.222181 2.294913 3.406735
Turns out, reconstruction isn't worth it past a few hundred rows.
spec.T.plot(loglog=True)

Functions
np.random.seed([3,1415])
d1 = pd.DataFrame(np.random.randint(10, size=(10, 5)), columns=list('ABCDE'))
def mask_with_values(df):
mask = df['A'].values == 'foo'
return df[mask]
def mask_with_in1d(df):
mask = np.in1d(df['A'].values, ['foo'])
return df[mask]
def reconstruct(df):
v = df.values
mask = np.in1d(df['A'].values, ['foo'])
return pd.DataFrame(v[mask], df.index[mask], df.columns)
spec = pd.DataFrame(
index=['mask_with_values', 'mask_with_in1d', 'reconstruct'],
columns=[10, 30, 100, 300, 1000, 3000, 10000, 30000],
dtype=float
)
Testing
for j in spec.columns:
d = pd.concat([df] * j, ignore_index=True)
for i in spec.index:
stmt = '{}(d)'.format(i)
setp = 'from __main__ import d, {}'.format(i)
spec.at[i, j] = timeit(stmt, setp, number=50)