Compare column names of Pandas Dataframe

Question

How to compare column names of 2 different Pandas data frame. I want to compare train and test data frames where there are some columns missing in test Data frames??

Solution

pandas.Index objects, including dataframe columns, have useful set-like methods, such as intersection and difference.

For example, given dataframes train and test:

train_cols = train.columns
test_cols = test.columns

common_cols = train_cols.intersection(test_cols)
train_not_test = train_cols.difference(test_cols)

Comments

[piRSquared]

Use the align method

[Yunnosch]

Hi Nath. Please make more obvious the functional difference to the solution proposed in the highly upvoted answer by jpp. Explain what benedit your solution offers in comparisopn. Currently this gives an impression of being functionally identical to an upvoted answer with no explanation. Because of this impression it risks being downvoted.

[blazej]

While this code may answer the question, providing additional context regarding how and/or why it solves the problem would improve the answer's long-term value.