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how to impute missing values in python for categorical variables

TAKUNDA answered on January 11, 2024 Popularity 3/10 Helpfulness 2/10

answer how to impute missing values in python for categorical variables

how to impute missing values in python for categorical variables

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1. Mode Imputation:
Replace missing values with the mode (most frequent category) of the variable.
import pandas as pd
# Assuming 'column_name' is the column with missing values
df['column_name'].fillna(df['column_name'].mode()[0], inplace=True)


2. Filling with a Specific Category:
If there is a specific category that makes sense for missing values, you can fill missing values with that category.
df['column_name'].fillna('Unknown', inplace=True)


3. Using Machine Learning Models:
Train a machine learning model to predict the missing values in the categorical variable based on other features. This can be done using algorithms like decision trees or random forests.
from sklearn.ensemble import RandomForestClassifier
from sklearn.model_selection import train_test_split

# Assuming 'target_column' is the column with missing values
X_train, X_test, y_train, y_test = train_test_split(
    df.drop('target_column', axis=1),
    df['target_column'],
    test_size=0.2,
    random_state=42
)

# Train a random forest classifier
model = RandomForestClassifier(n_estimators=100, random_state=42)
model.fit(X_train, y_train)

# Predict missing values
predicted_values = model.predict(X_test)

# Fill missing values with predicted values
df.loc[df['target_column'].isnull(), 'target_column'] = predicted_values

Note: This method is more advanced and might be overkill for simple imputation tasks.

4. Pandas fillna with Forward Fill or Backward Fill:
For time-series data, you can use forward fill (ffill) or backward fill (bfill) to impute missing values based on the previous or next non-missing value.


# Forward fill
df['column_name'].fillna(method='ffill', inplace=True)

# Backward fill
df['column_name'].fillna(method='bfill', inplace=True)

Popularity 3/10 Helpfulness 2/10 Language python

Source: Grepper

Tags: categorical python variables

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Contributed on Jan 11 2024

TAKUNDA

0 Answers Avg Quality 2/10

how to impute missing values in python for categorical variables

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