.fillna()

StevenSwiniarski's avatar
Published May 25, 2022
Contribute to Docs

The .fillna() function returns a new DataFrame object with NA values replaced with a specified value. The original DataFrame object, used to call the method, remains unchanged.

Syntax

df = dataframevalue.fillna(value)

dataframevalue is the DataFrame with the source data and value is the value used to fill holes. value can be a scalar such as 0, or it can be a DataFrame specifying replacement values for each column. Column labels not in value won’t be filled.

.fillna() has the following parameters:

Parameter Name Data Type Usage
value scalar, dict, Series, Dataframe Value used to fill holes. A scalar or a dict/Series/DataFrame specifying replacement values for each column.
method ‘backfill’, ‘bfill’, ‘pad’, ‘ffill’, None ‘backfill’/‘bfill’ fills holes with next valid observation. ‘pad’/‘ffill’ fills holes with last valid observation.
axis 0/1 or ‘index’/‘columns’ Axis along which to fill missing values.
inplace bool If True, alters the existing DataFrame rather than returning a new one. Defaults to False.
limit int Maximum consecutive items to back/forward fill. Defaults to None.

Example

In the following example, the .fillna() method is used to fill in NA values in a DataFrame first with a scalar, then with a dict:

import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
d = {'col 1' : [1,2,3,np.nan], 'col 2' : ['A','B',np.nan,'D'], 'col 3' : [5,np.nan,7,8], 'col 4' : [np.nan,'F','G','H']}
df = pd.DataFrame(data = d)
print(f'Original df:\n{df}\n')
first_fillna = df.fillna(0)
print(f'After first fillna():\n{first_fillna}\n')
second_fillna = df.fillna({'col 1':0,'col 2':'X','col 3':0,'col 4':'X'})
print(f'After second fillna():\n{second_fillna}\n')

The output from these instances of the .fillna() method is shown below:

Original df:
col 1 col 2 col 3 col 4
0 1.0 A 5.0 NaN
1 2.0 B NaN F
2 3.0 NaN 7.0 G
3 NaN D 8.0 H
After first fillna():
col 1 col 2 col 3 col 4
0 1.0 A 5.0 0
1 2.0 B 0.0 F
2 3.0 0 7.0 G
3 0.0 D 8.0 H
After second fillna():
col 1 col 2 col 3 col 4
0 1.0 A 5.0 X
1 2.0 B 0.0 F
2 3.0 X 7.0 G
3 0.0 D 8.0 H

All contributors

Contribute to Docs

Learn Python:Pandas on Codecademy