janitor.label_encode

janitor.label_encode(df: pandas.core.frame.DataFrame, column_names: Union[str, Iterable[str], Hashable]) → pandas.core.frame.DataFrame[source]

Convert labels into numerical data.

This method will create a new column with the string “_enc” appended after the original column’s name. Consider this to be syntactic sugar.

This method behaves differently from encode_categorical. This method creates a new column of numeric data. encode_categorical replaces the dtype of the original column with a “categorical” dtype.

This method mutates the original DataFrame.

Functional usage syntax:

df = label_encode(df, column_names="my_categorical_column")  # one way

Method chaining syntax:

import pandas as pd
import janitor
categorical_cols = ['col1', 'col2', 'col4']
df = pd.DataFrame(...).label_encode(column_names=categorical_cols)
Parameters

  • df – The pandas DataFrame object.

  • column_names – A column name or an iterable (list or tuple) of column names.

Returns

A pandas DataFrame.