Label encoding across multiple columns in scikit-l

Question

I'm trying to use scikit-learn's LabelEncoder to encode a pandas DataFrame of string labels. As the dataframe has many (50+) columns, I want to avoid creating a LabelEncoder object for each column; I'd rather just have one big LabelEncoder objects that works across all my columns of data.

Throwing the entire DataFrame into LabelEncoder creates the below error. Please bear in mind that I'm using dummy data here; in actuality I'm dealing with about 50 columns of string labeled data, so need a solution that doesn't reference any columns by name.

import pandas
from sklearn import preprocessing 

df = pandas.DataFrame({
    'pets': ['cat', 'dog', 'cat', 'monkey', 'dog', 'dog'], 
    'owner': ['Champ', 'Ron', 'Brick', 'Champ', 'Veronica', 'Ron'], 
    'location': ['San_Diego', 'New_York', 'New_York', 'San_Diego', 'San_Diego', 
                 'New_York']
})

le = preprocessing.LabelEncoder()

le.fit(df)

Traceback (most recent call last): File "", line 1, in File "/Users/bbalin/anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sklearn/preprocessing/label.py", line 103, in fit y = column_or_1d(y, warn=True) File "/Users/bbalin/anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sklearn/utils/validation.py", line 306, in column_or_1d raise ValueError("bad input shape {0}".format(shape)) ValueError: bad input shape (6, 3)

Any thoughts on how to get around this problem?

Answer 1

Since scikit-learn 0.20 you can use sklearn.compose.ColumnTransformer and sklearn.preprocessing.OneHotEncoder:

If you only have categorical variables, OneHotEncoder directly:

from sklearn.preprocessing import OneHotEncoder

OneHotEncoder(handle_unknown='ignore').fit_transform(df)

If you have heterogeneously typed features:

from sklearn.compose import make_column_transformer
from sklearn.preprocessing import RobustScaler
from sklearn.preprocessing import OneHotEncoder

categorical_columns = ['pets', 'owner', 'location']
numerical_columns = ['age', 'weigth', 'height']
column_trans = make_column_transformer(
    (categorical_columns, OneHotEncoder(handle_unknown='ignore'),
    (numerical_columns, RobustScaler())
column_trans.fit_transform(df)

More options in the documentation: http://scikit-learn.org/stable/modules/compose.html#columntransformer-for-heterogeneous-data

Answer 2

I checked the source code (https://github.com/scikit-learn/scikit-learn/blob/master/sklearn/preprocessing/label.py) of LabelEncoder. It was based on a set of numpy transformation, which one of those is np.unique(). And this function only takes 1-d array input. (correct me if I am wrong).

Very Rough ideas... first, identify which columns needed LabelEncoder, then loop through each column.

def cat_var(df): 
    """Identify categorical features. 

    Parameters
    ----------
    df: original df after missing operations 

    Returns
    -------
    cat_var_df: summary df with col index and col name for all categorical vars
    """
    col_type = df.dtypes
    col_names = list(df)

    cat_var_index = [i for i, x in enumerate(col_type) if x=='object']
    cat_var_name = [x for i, x in enumerate(col_names) if i in cat_var_index]

    cat_var_df = pd.DataFrame({'cat_ind': cat_var_index, 
                               'cat_name': cat_var_name})

    return cat_var_df



from sklearn.preprocessing import LabelEncoder 

def column_encoder(df, cat_var_list):
    """Encoding categorical feature in the dataframe

    Parameters
    ----------
    df: input dataframe 
    cat_var_list: categorical feature index and name, from cat_var function

    Return
    ------
    df: new dataframe where categorical features are encoded
    label_list: classes_ attribute for all encoded features 
    """

    label_list = []
    cat_var_df = cat_var(df)
    cat_list = cat_var_df.loc[:, 'cat_name']

    for index, cat_feature in enumerate(cat_list): 

        le = LabelEncoder()

        le.fit(df.loc[:, cat_feature])    
        label_list.append(list(le.classes_))

        df.loc[:, cat_feature] = le.transform(df.loc[:, cat_feature])

    return df, label_list

The returned df would be the one after encoding, and label_list will show you what all those values means in the corresponding column. This is a snippet from a data process script I wrote for work. Let me know if you think there could be any further improvement.

EDIT: Just want to mention here that the methods above work with data frame with no missing the best. Not sure how it is working toward data frame contains missing data. (I had a deal with missing procedure before execute above methods)

Answer 3

As mentioned by larsmans, LabelEncoder() only takes a 1-d array as an argument. That said, it is quite easy to roll your own label encoder that operates on multiple columns of your choosing, and returns a transformed dataframe. My code here is based in part on Zac Stewart's excellent blog post found here.

Creating a custom encoder involves simply creating a class that responds to the fit(), transform(), and fit_transform() methods. In your case, a good start might be something like this:

import pandas as pd
from sklearn.preprocessing import LabelEncoder
from sklearn.pipeline import Pipeline

# Create some toy data in a Pandas dataframe
fruit_data = pd.DataFrame({
    'fruit':  ['apple','orange','pear','orange'],
    'color':  ['red','orange','green','green'],
    'weight': [5,6,3,4]
})

class MultiColumnLabelEncoder:
    def __init__(self,columns = None):
        self.columns = columns # array of column names to encode

    def fit(self,X,y=None):
        return self # not relevant here

    def transform(self,X):
        '''
        Transforms columns of X specified in self.columns using
        LabelEncoder(). If no columns specified, transforms all
        columns in X.
        '''
        output = X.copy()
        if self.columns is not None:
            for col in self.columns:
                output[col] = LabelEncoder().fit_transform(output[col])
        else:
            for colname,col in output.iteritems():
                output[colname] = LabelEncoder().fit_transform(col)
        return output

    def fit_transform(self,X,y=None):
        return self.fit(X,y).transform(X)

Suppose we want to encode our two categorical attributes (fruit and color), while leaving the numeric attribute weight alone. We could do this as follows:

MultiColumnLabelEncoder(columns = ['fruit','color']).fit_transform(fruit_data)

Which transforms our fruit_data dataset from

to

Passing it a dataframe consisting entirely of categorical variables and omitting the columns parameter will result in every column being encoded (which I believe is what you were originally looking for):

MultiColumnLabelEncoder().fit_transform(fruit_data.drop('weight',axis=1))

This transforms

to

.

Note that it'll probably choke when it tries to encode attributes that are already numeric (add some code to handle this if you like).

Another nice feature about this is that we can use this custom transformer in a pipeline:

encoding_pipeline = Pipeline([
    ('encoding',MultiColumnLabelEncoder(columns=['fruit','color']))
    # add more pipeline steps as needed
])
encoding_pipeline.fit_transform(fruit_data)

Answer 4

Following up on the comments raised on the solution of @PriceHardman I would propose the following version of the class:

class LabelEncodingColoumns(BaseEstimator, TransformerMixin):
def __init__(self, cols=None):
    pdu._is_cols_input_valid(cols)
    self.cols = cols
    self.les = {col: LabelEncoder() for col in cols}
    self._is_fitted = False

def transform(self, df, **transform_params):
    """
    Scaling ``cols`` of ``df`` using the fitting

    Parameters
    ----------
    df : DataFrame
        DataFrame to be preprocessed
    """
    if not self._is_fitted:
        raise NotFittedError("Fitting was not preformed")
    pdu._is_cols_subset_of_df_cols(self.cols, df)

    df = df.copy()

    label_enc_dict = {}
    for col in self.cols:
        label_enc_dict[col] = self.les[col].transform(df[col])

    labelenc_cols = pd.DataFrame(label_enc_dict,
        # The index of the resulting DataFrame should be assigned and
        # equal to the one of the original DataFrame. Otherwise, upon
        # concatenation NaNs will be introduced.
        index=df.index
    )

    for col in self.cols:
        df[col] = labelenc_cols[col]
    return df

def fit(self, df, y=None, **fit_params):
    """
    Fitting the preprocessing

    Parameters
    ----------
    df : DataFrame
        Data to use for fitting.
        In many cases, should be ``X_train``.
    """
    pdu._is_cols_subset_of_df_cols(self.cols, df)
    for col in self.cols:
        self.les[col].fit(df[col])
    self._is_fitted = True
    return self

This class fits the encoder on the training set and uses the fitted version when transforming. Initial version of the code can be found here.

Answer 5

This is a year-and-a-half after the fact, but I too, needed to be able to .transform() multiple pandas dataframe columns at once (and be able to .inverse_transform() them as well). This expands upon the excellent suggestion of @PriceHardman above:

class MultiColumnLabelEncoder(LabelEncoder):
    """
    Wraps sklearn LabelEncoder functionality for use on multiple columns of a
    pandas dataframe.

    """
    def __init__(self, columns=None):
        self.columns = columns

    def fit(self, dframe):
        """
        Fit label encoder to pandas columns.

        Access individual column classes via indexig `self.all_classes_`

        Access individual column encoders via indexing
        `self.all_encoders_`
        """
        # if columns are provided, iterate through and get `classes_`
        if self.columns is not None:
            # ndarray to hold LabelEncoder().classes_ for each
            # column; should match the shape of specified `columns`
            self.all_classes_ = np.ndarray(shape=self.columns.shape,
                                           dtype=object)
            self.all_encoders_ = np.ndarray(shape=self.columns.shape,
                                            dtype=object)
            for idx, column in enumerate(self.columns):
                # fit LabelEncoder to get `classes_` for the column
                le = LabelEncoder()
                le.fit(dframe.loc[:, column].values)
                # append the `classes_` to our ndarray container
                self.all_classes_[idx] = (column,
                                          np.array(le.classes_.tolist(),
                                                  dtype=object))
                # append this column's encoder
                self.all_encoders_[idx] = le
        else:
            # no columns specified; assume all are to be encoded
            self.columns = dframe.iloc[:, :].columns
            self.all_classes_ = np.ndarray(shape=self.columns.shape,
                                           dtype=object)
            for idx, column in enumerate(self.columns):
                le = LabelEncoder()
                le.fit(dframe.loc[:, column].values)
                self.all_classes_[idx] = (column,
                                          np.array(le.classes_.tolist(),
                                                  dtype=object))
                self.all_encoders_[idx] = le
        return self

    def fit_transform(self, dframe):
        """
        Fit label encoder and return encoded labels.

        Access individual column classes via indexing
        `self.all_classes_`

        Access individual column encoders via indexing
        `self.all_encoders_`

        Access individual column encoded labels via indexing
        `self.all_labels_`
        """
        # if columns are provided, iterate through and get `classes_`
        if self.columns is not None:
            # ndarray to hold LabelEncoder().classes_ for each
            # column; should match the shape of specified `columns`
            self.all_classes_ = np.ndarray(shape=self.columns.shape,
                                           dtype=object)
            self.all_encoders_ = np.ndarray(shape=self.columns.shape,
                                            dtype=object)
            self.all_labels_ = np.ndarray(shape=self.columns.shape,
                                          dtype=object)
            for idx, column in enumerate(self.columns):
                # instantiate LabelEncoder
                le = LabelEncoder()
                # fit and transform labels in the column
                dframe.loc[:, column] =\
                    le.fit_transform(dframe.loc[:, column].values)
                # append the `classes_` to our ndarray container
                self.all_classes_[idx] = (column,
                                          np.array(le.classes_.tolist(),
                                                  dtype=object))
                self.all_encoders_[idx] = le
                self.all_labels_[idx] = le
        else:
            # no columns specified; assume all are to be encoded
            self.columns = dframe.iloc[:, :].columns
            self.all_classes_ = np.ndarray(shape=self.columns.shape,
                                           dtype=object)
            for idx, column in enumerate(self.columns):
                le = LabelEncoder()
                dframe.loc[:, column] = le.fit_transform(
                        dframe.loc[:, column].values)
                self.all_classes_[idx] = (column,
                                          np.array(le.classes_.tolist(),
                                                  dtype=object))
                self.all_encoders_[idx] = le
        return dframe

    def transform(self, dframe):
        """
        Transform labels to normalized encoding.
        """
        if self.columns is not None:
            for idx, column in enumerate(self.columns):
                dframe.loc[:, column] = self.all_encoders_[
                    idx].transform(dframe.loc[:, column].values)
        else:
            self.columns = dframe.iloc[:, :].columns
            for idx, column in enumerate(self.columns):
                dframe.loc[:, column] = self.all_encoders_[idx]\
                    .transform(dframe.loc[:, column].values)
        return dframe.loc[:, self.columns].values

    def inverse_transform(self, dframe):
        """
        Transform labels back to original encoding.
        """
        if self.columns is not None:
            for idx, column in enumerate(self.columns):
                dframe.loc[:, column] = self.all_encoders_[idx]\
                    .inverse_transform(dframe.loc[:, column].values)
        else:
            self.columns = dframe.iloc[:, :].columns
            for idx, column in enumerate(self.columns):
                dframe.loc[:, column] = self.all_encoders_[idx]\
                    .inverse_transform(dframe.loc[:, column].values)
        return dframe

Example:

If df and df_copy() are mixed-type pandas dataframes, you can apply the MultiColumnLabelEncoder() to the dtype=object columns in the following way:

# get `object` columns
df_object_columns = df.iloc[:, :].select_dtypes(include=['object']).columns
df_copy_object_columns = df_copy.iloc[:, :].select_dtypes(include=['object'].columns

# instantiate `MultiColumnLabelEncoder`
mcle = MultiColumnLabelEncoder(columns=object_columns)

# fit to `df` data
mcle.fit(df)

# transform the `df` data
mcle.transform(df)

# returns output like below
array([[1, 0, 0, ..., 1, 1, 0],
       [0, 5, 1, ..., 1, 1, 2],
       [1, 1, 1, ..., 1, 1, 2],
       ..., 
       [3, 5, 1, ..., 1, 1, 2],

# transform `df_copy` data
mcle.transform(df_copy)

# returns output like below (assuming the respective columns 
# of `df_copy` contain the same unique values as that particular 
# column in `df`
array([[1, 0, 0, ..., 1, 1, 0],
       [0, 5, 1, ..., 1, 1, 2],
       [1, 1, 1, ..., 1, 1, 2],
       ..., 
       [3, 5, 1, ..., 1, 1, 2],

# inverse `df` data
mcle.inverse_transform(df)

# outputs data like below
array([['August', 'Friday', '2013', ..., 'N', 'N', 'CA'],
       ['April', 'Tuesday', '2014', ..., 'N', 'N', 'NJ'],
       ['August', 'Monday', '2014', ..., 'N', 'N', 'NJ'],
       ..., 
       ['February', 'Tuesday', '2014', ..., 'N', 'N', 'NJ'],
       ['April', 'Tuesday', '2014', ..., 'N', 'N', 'NJ'],
       ['March', 'Tuesday', '2013', ..., 'N', 'N', 'NJ']], dtype=object)

# inverse `df_copy` data
mcle.inverse_transform(df_copy)

# outputs data like below
array([['August', 'Friday', '2013', ..., 'N', 'N', 'CA'],
       ['April', 'Tuesday', '2014', ..., 'N', 'N', 'NJ'],
       ['August', 'Monday', '2014', ..., 'N', 'N', 'NJ'],
       ..., 
       ['February', 'Tuesday', '2014', ..., 'N', 'N', 'NJ'],
       ['April', 'Tuesday', '2014', ..., 'N', 'N', 'NJ'],
       ['March', 'Tuesday', '2013', ..., 'N', 'N', 'NJ']], dtype=object)

You can access individual column classes, column labels, and column encoders used to fit each column via indexing:

mcle.all_classes_
mcle.all_encoders_
mcle.all_labels_