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Data Foundations · A little practice goes a long way.

← Wrangle / Preprocess lessonsTINY TABLES · REAL PYTHON · YOUR PACE
New columns & clean text · W10 · 8 MIN

Clean text

Remove accidental spaces and inconsistent letter case.

Exercises within this concept

  1. FollowFollow the techniqueCurrent exercise
  2. ChangeReplace literal punctuation
  3. TransferChoose and combine

Understand the idea

Use .str methods to clean every text value in a column. Each operation solves a different problem; chain them in the needed order.

Concept sketch: strip whitespace, standardise caseraw" TEA ""Latte "clean"tea""latte"strip whitespace, standardise case
Illustration · not the exercise output

A small example

" TEA-CUP " → strip → "TEA-CUP" → lower → "tea-cup" → replace("-", " ") → "tea cup".

Follow the code

Apply the idea to the supplied table. Read from top to bottom; the final line displays the result.

df["drink"] = df["drink"].str.strip().str.lower()
df["size"] = df["size"].str.strip().str.title()
df

What each part does

df["drink"].str
string tools for a column
strip()
trim both ends
lower()
lowercase text
title()
title case for display

Your inputs

The editable setup on the right creates df. Run executes the setup and your work from top to bottom.

Messy café orders · 8 synthetic rows
orderdrinksizepricetipdate
101" latte "LARGE6.2012026-06-01
102TEAsmall3.100.52026-06-02
103" mocha "LARGEoopsNonenot a date
104LatteSmallNone0.82026-06-04
104LatteSmallNone0.82026-06-04
105"tea "SMALL4.200.62026-06-05
106ESPRESSOsmall2.500.22026-06-06
107" mocha"large6.801.52026-06-07

Your task · Follow

  1. Using df, clean drink by trimming spaces and making it lowercase.
  2. Clean size by trimming spaces and making it title case.
  3. Keep the changes in df and display it.
  4. Use: str.strip(), str.lower(), str.title().
Hint

strip removes edge spaces; changing case alone leaves those spaces intact.

Reveal solution

One way to do it. Keep any supplied setup in the editor and use this in the Your work section.

df["drink"] = df["drink"].str.strip().str.lower()
df["size"] = df["size"].str.strip().str.title()
df
Your task · Follow
  1. Using df, clean drink by trimming spaces and making it lowercase.
  2. Clean size by trimming spaces and making it title case.
  3. Keep the changes in df and display it.
  4. Use: str.strip(), str.lower(), str.title().

Tab: indent · Shift+Tab: outdent · Esc, then Tab: leave editor

Edit Python. Control or Command plus Enter runs it. Tab indents by four spaces. Shift plus Tab outdents. Press Escape, then Tab or Shift plus Tab to leave the editor.

Each run executes all editor code in a fresh Python session. Display a value by leaving it on the final line.

Python starts when you open a lesson.

Output

Run your code to see what Python returns.