How to Sort DataFrame by Column in Pandas?

Pandas DataFrame – Sort by Column

To sort the rows of a DataFrame by a column, use pandas.DataFrame.sort_values() method with the argument by=column_name. The sort_values() method does not modify the original DataFrame, but returns the sorted DataFrame.

You can sort the dataframe in ascending or descending order of the column values. In this tutorial, we shall go through some example programs, where we shall sort dataframe in ascending or descending order.

Example 1: Sort DataFrame by a Column in Ascending Order

The default sorting order of sort_values() function is ascending order. In this example, we will create a dataframe and sort the rows by a specific column in ascending order.

Python Program

import pandas as pd

data = {'name': ['Somu', 'Kiku', 'Amol', 'Lini'],
	'physics': [68, 74, 77, 78],
	'chemistry': [84, 56, 73, 69],
	'algebra': [78, 88, 82, 87]}

	
#create dataframe
df_marks = pd.DataFrame(data)

#sort dataframe
sorted_df = df_marks.sort_values(by='algebra')
print(sorted_df)

Run

Output

   name  physics  chemistry  algebra
0  Somu       68         84       78
2  Amol       77         73       82
3  Lini       78         69       87
1  Kiku       74         56       88

You can see that the rows are sorted based on the increasing order of the column algebra.

Example 2: Sort DataFrame by a Column in Descending Order

To sort the dataframe in descending order a column, pass ascending=False argument to the sort_values() method. . In this example, we will create a dataframe and sort the rows by a specific column in descending order.

Python Program

import pandas as pd

data = {'name': ['Somu', 'Kiku', 'Amol', 'Lini'],
	'physics': [68, 74, 77, 78],
	'chemistry': [84, 56, 73, 69],
	'algebra': [78, 88, 82, 87]}

	
#create dataframe
df_marks = pd.DataFrame(data)

#sort dataframe
sorted_df = df_marks.sort_values(by='algebra', ascending=False)
print(sorted_df)

Run

Output

   name  physics  chemistry  algebra
1  Kiku       74         56       88
3  Lini       78         69       87
2  Amol       77         73       82
0  Somu       68         84       78

You can see that the rows are sorted based on the decreasing order of the column algebra.

Summary

In this Pandas Tutorial, we learned to sort DataFrame in ascending and descending orders, using sort_values(), with the help of well detailed Python example programs.