Pandas DataFrame to_dict fails after drop_duplicates

Question

I have a DataFrame, let's just call it df .

return df.to_dict(orient="records") dutifully spits out a list of dicts.

But if I do

df.drop_duplicates
return df.to_dict(orient="records")

it fails and says:

'function' object has no attribute 'to_dict'

Answer 1

I think you miss () , because without the () the drop_duplicates just refers to the function, so df becomes a copy of the function, not the result of executing it (thanks andychase for comment):

df = df.drop_duplicates()
return df.to_dict(orient="records")

Or:

df.drop_duplicates(inplace=True)
return df.to_dict(orient="records")