How to add column name

Question

I have a dataset in which some columns have header but the other ones don't have. Therefore, I want to add column name only to those who doesn't have column name. I know how to add column names using header but I would like to know how to do this using index so that I can add column names only to the empty ones. Any suggestions will be appreciated.

Answer 1

Loop through df.columns checking whether there is a column name or if it is empty:

import pandas as pd

# create df with two empty columns
df = pd.DataFrame({'a': [1,2], 'b': [1,2], 'c': [1,2], 'd':[1,2]})
df.columns = ['', 'b', '', 'd']

df with empty columns:

       b     d 
 0  1  1  1  1  
 1  2  2  2  2

# new of list columns names must be the same length as number of empty columns
empty_col_names = ['x', 'y']
new_col_names = []
count = 0

for item in df.columns:
    if item == '':
        new_col_names.append(empty_col_names[count])
        count += 1
    else:
        new_col_names.append(item)

df.columns = new_col_names

df with filled columns:

    x  b  y  d
 0  1  1  1  1
 1  2  2  2  2