pandas.DataFrame.nsmallest

DataFrame.nsmallest(n, columns, keep=’first’)

Get the rows of a DataFrame sorted by the n smallest values of columns.

New in version 0.17.0.

Parameters:

n : int

Number of items to retrieve

columns : list or str

Column name or names to order by

keep : {‘first’, ‘last’, False}, default ‘first’

Where there are duplicate values: - first : take the first occurrence. - last : take the last occurrence.

Returns:

DataFrame

Examples

>>> df = DataFrame({'a': [1, 10, 8, 11, -1],
...                 'b': list('abdce'),
...                 'c': [1.0, 2.0, np.nan, 3.0, 4.0]})
>>> df.nsmallest(3, 'a')
   a  b   c
4 -1  e   4
0  1  a   1
2  8  d NaN