# How would I remove a column from a dataframe by distributing its values among existing columns?
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-would-i-remove-a-column-from-a-dataframe-by-distributing-its-values-among-existing-columns/44265
**Category:** General Usage
**Created:** [August 4, 2020, 3:11pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-would-i-remove-a-column-from-a-dataframe-by-distributing-its-values-among-existing-columns/44265 "2020-08-04T15:11:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Julia1](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Julia1)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2020, 3:11pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-would-i-remove-a-column-from-a-dataframe-by-distributing-its-values-among-existing-columns/44265/1 "2020-08-04T15:11:26Z")
Hi how’s it going?
I have a situation where I’m keeping counts of certain visits, and in some scenarios the person visits multiple places during one trip. However, I can’t have this as part of my data, and need it to be redistributed. Let me get to the example so this doesn’t sound like complete jargon!
```julia
df = DataFrame(:person=>["bob","phil","nick"],:london=>[1,1,0],:spain=>[1,0,0],Symbol("london,spain")=>[1,1,1])
```
What I would like to do is scan all the columns that have a delimiter in it, and then redistribute those columns among existing columns in the dataframe (if the existing column exists). Here would be the desired output.
Thank you!
---
### Author:  [@pdeffebach](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/pdeffebach)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2020, 4:44pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-would-i-remove-a-column-from-a-dataframe-by-distributing-its-values-among-existing-columns/44265/2 "2020-08-04T16:44:21Z")
This is a tough question! Here is one solution
```julia
julia> df = DataFrame(:person=>["bob","phil","nick"],:london=>[1,1,0],:spain=>[1,0,0],Symbol("london,spain")=>[1,1,1]);
julia> function fix_name(df)
for name in names(df)
if occursin(",", name)
vals = df[!, name]
inner_names = split(name, ",")
for n in inner_names
df[!, n] = df[!, n] .+ vals
end
select!(df, Not(name))
return(df)
end
end
return nothing
end;
julia> let df = df
while df != nothing
df = fix_name(df)
end
end
julia> df
3×3 DataFrame
│ Row │ person │ london │ spain │
│ │ String │ Int64 │ Int64 │
├─────┼────────┼────────┼───────┤
│ 1 │ bob │ 2 │ 2 │
│ 2 │ phil │ 2 │ 1 │
│ 3 │ nick │ 1 │ 1 │
```
---
### Author:  [@nilshg](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/nilshg)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2020, 5:04pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-would-i-remove-a-column-from-a-dataframe-by-distributing-its-values-among-existing-columns/44265/3 "2020-08-04T17:04:26Z")
That’s a good solution, and I don’t have time to come up with a full one myself, but this seems to me like a case that might benefit from a wide-to-long transformation as it’s often painful to have relevant info encoded in column names like this. So I might start with:
```julia
julia> stack(df, names(df[:, Not(:person)]))
9×3 DataFrame
│ Row │ person │ variable │ value │
│ │ String │ Categorical… │ Int64 │
├─────┼────────┼──────────────┼───────┤
│ 1 │ bob │ london │ 1 │
│ 2 │ phil │ london │ 1 │
│ 3 │ nick │ london │ 0 │
│ 4 │ bob │ spain │ 1 │
│ 5 │ phil │ spain │ 0 │
│ 6 │ nick │ spain │ 0 │
│ 7 │ bob │ london,spain │ 1 │
│ 8 │ phil │ london,spain │ 1 │
│ 9 │ nick │ london,spain │ 1 │
```
and go from there
---
### Author:  [@xiaodai](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/xiaodai)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2020, 12:16am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-would-i-remove-a-column-from-a-dataframe-by-distributing-its-values-among-existing-columns/44265/4 "2020-08-05T00:16:24Z")
```julia
function row_spread(row)
dict = Dict{String, Int}()
for (colname, val) in zip(keys(row), values(row))
if colname == :person
continue
end
for country in split(string(colname), ",")
dict[country] = get(dict, country, 0) + val
end
end
new_row = hcat(DataFrame(person = row.person), DataFrame(dict))
new_row
end
new_df = reduce(vcat, row_spread(row) for row in eachrow(df))
```
---
### Author:  [@Julia1](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Julia1)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2020, 5:02pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-would-i-remove-a-column-from-a-dataframe-by-distributing-its-values-among-existing-columns/44265/5 "2020-08-06T17:02:05Z")
Thanks a lot for the replies guys.