How to fill missing values by looking at another row with same value in one column(or more)?

Question

Let's say we have a 6*4 data frame in which third and fourth column contain missing value

1 2   3   L1
4 5   6   L2
7 8   9   L3
4 8   NaN NaN
2 3   4   5
7 9   NaN NaN

I'd like to fill the missing value by looking at another row that has the same value for the first column. So, in the end, I should have:

1 2   3   L1
4 5   6   L2
7 8   9   L3
4 8   6   L2    <- Taken from 4 5 6 L2 row
2 3   4   L4
7 9   9   L3    <- Taken from 7 8 9 L3 row

How can we do it with Pandas in the fastest way possible?

Answer 1

Sorted and did a forward-fill NaN

import pandas as pd, numpy as np
data = np.array([[1,2,3,'L1'],[4,5,6,'L2'],[7,8,9,'L3'],[4,8,np.nan,np.nan],[2,3,4,5],[7,9,np.nan,np.nan]],dtype='object')
df = pd.DataFrame(data,columns=['A','B','C','D'])

df.sort_values(by='A',inplace=True)
df.fillna(method='ffill')