Convert a column to row name/index in Pandas

Last Updated : 16 Jul, 2021

Pandas provide a convenient way to handle data and its transformation. Let's see how can we convert a column to row name/index in Pandas.

Create a dataframe first with dict of lists.

Python3

# importing pandas as pd
import pandas as pd

# Creating a dict of lists 
data = {'Name':["Akash", "Geeku", "Pankaj", "Sumitra","Ramlal"],
       'Branch':["B.Tech", "MBA", "BCA", "B.Tech", "BCA"],
       'Score':["80","90","60", "30", "50"],
       'Result': ["Pass","Pass","Pass","Fail","Fail"]}

# creating a dataframe 
df = pd.DataFrame(data)
 
df

Output:

Method #1: Using set_index() method.

Python3

# importing pandas as pd
import pandas as pd

# Creating a dict of lists
data = {'Name':["Akash", "Geeku", "Pankaj", "Sumitra","Ramlal"],
       'Branch':["B.Tech", "MBA", "BCA", "B.Tech", "BCA"],
       'Score':["80","90","60", "30", "50"],
       'Result': ["Pass","Pass","Pass","Fail","Fail"]}

# Creating a dataframe
df = pd.DataFrame(data)

# Using set_index() method on 'Name' column
df = df.set_index('Name')

df

Output:

Now, set index name as None.

Python3

# set the index to 'None' via its name property
df.index.names = [None]

df

Output:

Method #2: Using pivot() method.
In order to convert a column to row name/index in dataframe, Pandas has a built-in function Pivot.
Now, let's say we want Result to be the rows/index, and columns be name in our dataframe, to achieve this pandas has provided a method called Pivot. Let us see how it works,

Python3

# importing pandas as pd
import pandas as pd

# Creating a dict of lists
data = {'name':["Akash", "Geeku", "Pankaj", "Sumitra", "Ramlal"],
       'Branch':["B.Tech", "MBA", "BCA", "B.Tech", "BCA"],
       'Score':["80", "90", "60", "30", "50"],
       'Result': ["Pass", "Pass", "Pass", "Fail", "Fail"]}

df = pd.DataFrame(data)

# pivoting the dataframe
df.pivot(index ='Result', columns ='name')

df