How to obtain the difference in elements of DataFrame objects

Overview

The diff() function is used to obtain the discrete difference in the element of a DataFrame compared to another element of the same DataFrame.

Syntax

The diff() function has the following syntax:

DataFrame.diff(periods=1, axis=0)
Syntax for the diff() function in Pandas

Parameters

The diff() function takes the following parameter values:

  • periods : This takes an int which represents the number of rows or columns to shift for calculating the difference.
  • axis: This represents the name for the row ( designated as 0 or 'index') or the column (designated as 1 or 'columns') axis.

Note: Here, Axis represents the row and column of the DataFrame. Axis with a value of 0 indicate the axes running vertically downwards across a row, while a value of 1 indicates the axes running horizontally across a column.

Return value

The diff() function returns a DataFrame holding the first differences of the elements of the DataFrame.

Code example

Let's look at the code below:

# A code to illustrate the diff() function in Pandas



# importing the pandas library

import pandas as pd



# creating a dataframe

df = pd.DataFrame([[5,10,4,15,3],

                   [1,7,5,9,0.5],

                   [3,11,13,14,12]],

                   columns=list('ABCDE'))

# printing the dataframe

print(df)



# obtaining the differences vertically across rows

print(df.diff(axis="index"))



# obtaining the ifferences horizontally over columns

print(df.diff(axis="columns"))

Code explanation

  • Line 4: We import the pandas library.
  • Lines 7 to 10: We create a DataFrame, df.
  • Line 12: We print the DataFrame, df.
  • Line 15: We use the diff() function to obtain the differences in values of the elements of the DataFrame running downwards across the rows (axis 0). We print the result to the console.
  • Line 18: We use the diff() function to obtain the differences in values of the elements of the DataFrame running horizontally across columns (axis 1). We print the result to the console.

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