I have two data frames df1 and df2, where df2 is a subset of df1. How do I get a new data frame (df3) which is the difference between the two data frames?

In other word, a data frame that has all the rows/columns in df1 that are not in df2?

By using drop_duplicates

pd.concat([df1,df2]).drop_duplicates(keep=False)

Update :

Above method only working for those dataframes they do not have duplicate itself, For example

df1=pd.DataFrame({'A':[1,2,3,3],'B':[2,3,4,4]})
df2=pd.DataFrame({'A':[1],'B':[2]})

It will output like below , which is wrong

Wrong Output :

pd.concat([df1, df2]).drop_duplicates(keep=False)
Out[655]: 
   A  B
1  2  3

Correct Output

Out[656]: 
   A  B
1  2  3
2  3  4
3  3  4

How to achieve that?

Method 1: Using isin with tuple

df1[~df1.apply(tuple,1).isin(df2.apply(tuple,1))]
Out[657]: 
   A  B
1  2  3
2  3  4
3  3  4

Method 2: merge with indicator

df1.merge(df2,indicator = True, how='left').loc[lambda x : x['_merge']!='both']
Out[421]: 
   A  B     _merge
1  2  3  left_only
2  3  4  left_only
3  3  4  left_only

For rows, try this, where Name is the joint index column (can be a list for multiple common columns, or specify left_on and right_on):

m = df1.merge(df2, on='Name', how='outer', suffixes=['', '_'], indicator=True)

The indicator=True setting is useful as it adds a column called _merge, with all changes between df1 and df2, categorized into 3 possible kinds: “left_only”, “right_only” or “both”.

For columns, try this:

set(df1.columns).symmetric_difference(df2.columns)

Accepted answer Method 1 will not work for data frames with NaNs inside, as pd.np.nan != pd.np.nan. I am not sure if this is the best way, but it can be avoided by

df1[~df1.astype(str).apply(tuple, 1).isin(df2.astype(str).apply(tuple, 1))]

edit2, I figured out a new solution without the need of setting index

newdf=pd.concat[df1,df2].drop_duplicates(keep=False)

okay i found the answer of hightest vote already contain what i have figured out .Yes, we can only use this code on condition that there are no duplicates in each two dfs.

I have a tricky method.First we set ’Name’ as the index of two dataframe given by the question.Since we have same ’Name’ in two dfs,we can just drop the ’smaller’ df’s index from the ‘bigger’ df. Here is the code.

df1.set_index('Name',inplace=True)
df2.set_index('Name',inplace=True)
newdf=df1.drop(df2.index)

import pandas as pd
# given
df1 = pd.DataFrame({'Name':['John','Mike','Smith','Wale','Marry','Tom','Menda','Bolt','Yuswa',],
    'Age':[23,45,12,34,27,44,28,39,40]})
df2 = pd.DataFrame({'Name':['John','Smith','Wale','Tom','Menda','Yuswa',],
    'Age':[23,12,34,44,28,40]})

# find elements in df1 that are not in df2
df_1notin2 = df1[~(df1['Name'].isin(df2['Name']) & df1['Age'].isin(df2['Age']))].reset_index(drop=True)

# output:
print('df1\n', df1)
print('df2\n', df2)
print('df_1notin2\n', df_1notin2)

# df1
#     Age   Name
# 0   23   John
# 1   45   Mike
# 2   12  Smith
# 3   34   Wale
# 4   27  Marry
# 5   44    Tom
# 6   28  Menda
# 7   39   Bolt
# 8   40  Yuswa
# df2
#     Age   Name
# 0   23   John
# 1   12  Smith
# 2   34   Wale
# 3   44    Tom
# 4   28  Menda
# 5   40  Yuswa
# df_1notin2
#     Age   Name
# 0   45   Mike
# 1   27  Marry
# 2   39   Bolt

Perhaps a simpler one-liner, with identical or different column names. Worked even when df2[‘Name2’] contained duplicate values.

newDf = df1.set_index('Name1')
           .drop(df2['Name2'], errors='ignore')
           .reset_index(drop=False)

As mentioned here that

df1[~df1.apply(tuple,1).isin(df2.apply(tuple,1))]

is correct solution but it will produce wrong output if

df1=pd.DataFrame({'A':[1],'B':[2]})
df2=pd.DataFrame({'A':[1,2,3,3],'B':[2,3,4,4]})

In that case above solution will give Empty DataFrame, instead you should use concat method after removing duplicates from each datframe.

Use concate with drop_duplicates

df1=df1.drop_duplicates(keep="first") 
df2=df2.drop_duplicates(keep="first") 
pd.concat([df1,df2]).drop_duplicates(keep=False)

A slight variation of the nice @liangli’s solution that does not require to change the index of existing dataframes:

newdf = df1.drop(df1.join(df2.set_index('Name').index))

Finding difference by index. Assuming df1 is a subset of df2 and the indexes are carried forward when subsetting

df1.loc[set(df1.index).symmetric_difference(set(df2.index))].dropna()

# Example

df1 = pd.DataFrame({"gender":np.random.choice(['m','f'],size=5), "subject":np.random.choice(["bio","phy","chem"],size=5)}, index = [1,2,3,4,5])

df2 =  df1.loc[[1,3,5]]

df1

 gender subject
1      f     bio
2      m    chem
3      f     phy
4      m     bio
5      f     bio

df2

  gender subject
1      f     bio
3      f     phy
5      f     bio

df3 = df1.loc[set(df1.index).symmetric_difference(set(df2.index))].dropna()

df3

  gender subject
2      m    chem
4      m     bio

In addition to accepted answer, I would like to propose one more wider solution that can find a 2D set difference of two dataframes with any index/columns (they might not coincide for both datarames). Also method allows to setup tolerance for float elements for dataframe comparison (it uses np.isclose)

import numpy as np
import pandas as pd

def get_dataframe_setdiff2d(df_new: pd.DataFrame, 
                            df_old: pd.DataFrame, 
                            rtol=1e-03, atol=1e-05) -> pd.DataFrame:
    """Returns set difference of two pandas DataFrames"""

    union_index = np.union1d(df_new.index, df_old.index)
    union_columns = np.union1d(df_new.columns, df_old.columns)

    new = df_new.reindex(index=union_index, columns=union_columns)
    old = df_old.reindex(index=union_index, columns=union_columns)

    mask_diff = ~np.isclose(new, old, rtol, atol)

    df_bool = pd.DataFrame(mask_diff, union_index, union_columns)

    df_diff = pd.concat([new[df_bool].stack(),
                         old[df_bool].stack()], axis=1)

    df_diff.columns = ["New", "Old"]

    return df_diff

Example:

In [1]

df1 = pd.DataFrame({'A':[2,1,2],'C':[2,1,2]})
df2 = pd.DataFrame({'A':[1,1],'B':[1,1]})

print("df1:\n", df1, "\n")

print("df2:\n", df2, "\n")

diff = get_dataframe_setdiff2d(df1, df2)

print("diff:\n", diff, "\n")

Out [1]

df1:
   A  C
0  2  2
1  1  1
2  2  2 

df2:
   A  B
0  1  1
1  1  1 

diff:
     New  Old
0 A  2.0  1.0
  B  NaN  1.0
  C  2.0  NaN
1 B  NaN  1.0
  C  1.0  NaN
2 A  2.0  NaN
  C  2.0  NaN