Pandas/Python: How to concatenate two dataframes without duplicates?

MJP picture MJP · Jan 23, 2014 · Viewed 89.5k times · Source

I'd like to concatenate two dataframes A, B to a new one without duplicate rows (if rows in B already exist in A, don't add):

Dataframe A: Dataframe B:

   I    II    I    II
0  1    2     5    6
1  3    1     3    1

New Dataframe:

     I    II
  0  1    2
  1  3    1
  2  5    6

How can I do this?

Answer

Ryan G picture Ryan G · Jan 23, 2014

The simplest way is to just do the concatenation, and then drop duplicates.

>>> df1
   A  B
0  1  2
1  3  1
>>> df2
   A  B
0  5  6
1  3  1
>>> pandas.concat([df1,df2]).drop_duplicates().reset_index(drop=True)
   A  B
0  1  2
1  3  1
2  5  6

The reset_index(drop=True) is to fix up the index after the concat() and drop_duplicates(). Without it you will have an index of [0,1,0] instead of [0,1,2]. This could cause problems for further operations on this dataframe down the road if it isn't reset right away.