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Data Foundations · A little practice goes a long way.

← Wrangle / Preprocess lessonsTINY TABLES · REAL PYTHON · YOUR PACE
Combining & preparing · W27 · 8 MIN

Encode categories

Represent category membership as indicator columns.

Exercises within this concept

  1. FollowFollow the techniqueCurrent exercise
  2. ChangeAdapt a requirement
  3. TransferChoose and combine

Understand the idea

One-hot encoding replaces category labels with an indicator column for each label.

Concept sketch: one indicator column per categorylabelABAAB100110one indicator column per category
Illustration · not the exercise output

A small example

For species Cat and Dog: the Cat row has species_Cat=1 and species_Dog=0; the Dog row has the reverse.

Follow the code

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

pd.get_dummies(df, columns=["flavour"], dtype=int)

What each part does

pd.get_dummies(df, columns=[...])
encode selected columns
dtype=int
use 0 and 1 rather than False and True

Your inputs

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

Candy shop · 6 synthetic rows
candyflavourpriceratingshelf
Gummy Bearfruity1.24.1A
Choco Popchocolate2.14.6B
Mint Bitemint1.53.8A
Berry Loopfruity2.84.4B
Cocoa Cubechocolate3.44.9A
Lemon Dropfruity1.84B

Your task · Follow

  1. One-hot encode flavour in df with integer indicator columns, preserving the other columns.
  2. Return the encoded DataFrame.
  3. Use: get_dummies().
Hint

Specify dtype=int for 0/1 indicators rather than Boolean values.

Reveal solution

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

pd.get_dummies(df, columns=["flavour"], dtype=int)
Your task · Follow
  1. One-hot encode flavour in df with integer indicator columns, preserving the other columns.
  2. Return the encoded DataFrame.
  3. Use: get_dummies().

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.