Remove alpha and special characters from the column using python

Question

I am trying to remove alpha characters and special characters(,) from the column values. When trying to remove the alpha characters it gives NaN as output.

Input Data:

col2
2565.0
23899
876.44
1765.7
3,253.0CA
9876.9B

Output Data:

    col2
    2565.0
    23899
    876.44
    1765.7
    3253.0
    9876.9

Code i have been using:

df['col2'] = df['col2'].str.replace(r"[a-zA-Z]",'')
df['col2']=df['col2'].fillna('').str.replace(',',"").astype(float) 

Please suggest how to resolve this.

Answer 1

Use Series.replace and regex which matches "not numbers and dot"

df['col2'] = df.col2.replace('[^\d.]', '', regex=True).astype(float)

Output

       col2
0   2565.00
1  23899.00
2    876.44
3   1765.70
4   3253.00
5   9876.90

Answer 2

Use Series.str.replace :

df['col2'] = df['col2'].str.replace(r'[a-zA-Z,]','', regex=True).astype(float)
print (df)
       col2
0   2565.00
1  23899.00
2    876.44
3   1765.70
4   3253.00
5   9876.90