pandas.DataFrame.diff

DataFrame.diff(self, periods=1, axis=0) [source]

First discrete difference of element.

Calculates the difference of a DataFrame element compared with another element in the DataFrame (default is the element in the same column of the previous row).

Parameters:	periods : int, default 1 Periods to shift for calculating difference, accepts negative values. axis : {0 or ‘index’, 1 or ‘columns’}, default 0 Take difference over rows (0) or columns (1). New in version 0.16.1..
Returns:	DataFrame

See also

Series.diff

First discrete difference for a Series.

DataFrame.pct_change

Percent change over given number of periods.

DataFrame.shift

Shift index by desired number of periods with an optional time freq.

Examples

Difference with previous row

>>> df = pd.DataFrame({'a': [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6],
...                    'b': [1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8],
...                    'c': [1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36]})
>>> df
   a  b   c
0  1  1   1
1  2  1   4
2  3  2   9
3  4  3  16
4  5  5  25
5  6  8  36

>>> df.diff()
     a    b     c
0  NaN  NaN   NaN
1  1.0  0.0   3.0
2  1.0  1.0   5.0
3  1.0  1.0   7.0
4  1.0  2.0   9.0
5  1.0  3.0  11.0

Difference with previous column

>>> df.diff(axis=1)
    a    b     c
0 NaN  0.0   0.0
1 NaN -1.0   3.0
2 NaN -1.0   7.0
3 NaN -1.0  13.0
4 NaN  0.0  20.0
5 NaN  2.0  28.0

Difference with 3rd previous row

>>> df.diff(periods=3)
     a    b     c
0  NaN  NaN   NaN
1  NaN  NaN   NaN
2  NaN  NaN   NaN
3  3.0  2.0  15.0
4  3.0  4.0  21.0
5  3.0  6.0  27.0

Difference with following row

>>> df.diff(periods=-1)
     a    b     c
0 -1.0  0.0  -3.0
1 -1.0 -1.0  -5.0
2 -1.0 -1.0  -7.0
3 -1.0 -2.0  -9.0
4 -1.0 -3.0 -11.0
5  NaN  NaN   NaN