Pandas & python: unstack or pivot with many columns as indices?

Question

I have a dataframe like the following:

    A     B    C   Property   Value
1   Bob  b100  X1  prop1      a
2   Bob  b100  X1  prop2      b
3   Bob  b100  X2  prop1      c
4   Bob  b100  Y1  prop1      a
5   Bob  b100  Z   prop9      b
6   Bob  b200  X1  prop1      c
7   Bob  b200  X1  prop2      d

How can I use unstack, pivot, or some other method to only unstack the Property and Value columns?

I am trying to obtain the following dataframe:

    A     B    C   prop1  prop2   prop9
1   Bob  b100  X1  a        b       -
2   Bob  b100  X2  c        -       -
3   Bob  b100  Y1  a        a       -
4   Bob  b100  Z   -        -       b
5   Bob  b200  X1  c        d       -

Answer 1

In [115]: (df.pivot_table(index=['A','B','C'], columns='Property', values='Value',
     ...:                 aggfunc='first', fill_value='-')
     ...:    .reset_index()
     ...:    .rename_axis(None,1))
     ...:
Out[115]:
     A     B   C prop1 prop2 prop9
0  Bob  b100  X1     a     b     -
1  Bob  b100  X2     c     -     -
2  Bob  b100  Y1     a     -     -
3  Bob  b100   Z     -     -     b
4  Bob  b200  X1     c     d     -

or using unstack :

In [124]: (df.set_index(['A','B','C','Property'])
     ...:    ['Value'].unstack('Property', fill_value='-')
     ...:    .reset_index()
     ...:    .rename_axis(None,1))
     ...:
Out[124]:
     A     B   C prop1 prop2 prop9
0  Bob  b100  X1     a     b     -
1  Bob  b100  X2     c     -     -
2  Bob  b100  Y1     a     -     -
3  Bob  b100   Z     -     -     b
4  Bob  b200  X1     c     d     -

Answer 2

Here's another solution using pd.get_dummies . Also added some benchmarking for comparison.

import pandas as pd, numpy as np

def jp(df):
    df = df.join(pd.get_dummies(df.Property))

    for col in ['prop1', 'prop2', 'prop9']:
        df[col] = np.where(df[col], df.Value, df[col])

    return df.drop(['Property', 'Value'], 1).groupby(['A', 'B', 'C'])\
             .agg(lambda s: next((i for i in s if i), 0)).reset_index()

def maxu(df):
    return df.pivot_table(index=['A','B','C'], columns='Property', values='Value', \
                          aggfunc='first', fill_value='-').reset_index().rename_axis(None,1)

def maxu2(df):
    return df.set_index(['A','B','C','Property'])['Value']\
             .unstack('Property', fill_value='-').reset_index().rename_axis(None,1)

%timeit jp(df.copy())     # 14 ms ± 176 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)

%timeit maxu(df.copy())   # 14.1 ms ± 181 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)

%timeit maxu2(df.copy())  # 10.4 ms ± 1.98 ms per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)