Pandas Series.str.center() Method

TheSeries.str.center() method in Pandas is used to pad both the left and right sides of strings in a Series or Index to a specified width.

This method ensures that the string is centered within the new width, with additional characters filled by a specified fill character. This operation is similar to the string methodstr.center() in Python.

Syntax

Following is the syntax of the PandasSeries.str.center() method −

Series.str.center(width, fillchar=' ')

Parameters

TheSeries.str.center() method accepts the following parameters −

• width: An integer specifying the minimum width of the resulting string. Additional characters will be filled withfillchar.
• fillchar: A string specifying the character for filling, default is whitespace.

Return Value

TheSeries.str.center() method returns a new Series with the strings centered and padded to the specified width using the specified fill character.

Example 1

In this example, we demonstrate the basic usage of theSeries.str.center() method by applying it to a Series of strings.

import pandas as pd# Create a Series of stringss = pd.Series(['dog', 'lion', 'panda'])# Display the input Seriesprint("Input Series")print(s)# Center the strings with a width of 8 and fill character '.'print("Series after calling center with width=8 and fillchar='.':")print(s.str.center(8, fillchar='.'))

When we run the above code, it produces the followingoutput −

Input Series0      dog1     lion2    pandadtype: objectSeries after calling center with width=8 and fillchar='.':0    ..dog...1    ..lion..2    .panda..dtype: object

Example 2

This example demonstrates how to use theSeries.str.center() method to format the 'Animal' column in a DataFrame, by centering each animal name to a specified width with a custom fill character.

import pandas as pd# Create a DataFramedf = pd.DataFrame({'Animal': ['dog', 'lion', 'panda'], 'Legs': [4, 4, 2]})print("Input DataFrame:")print(df)# Center the strings in the 'Animal' column with a width of 8 and fill character '-'df['Animal'] = df['Animal'].str.center(8, fillchar='-')print("DataFrame after applying center with width=8 and fillchar='-':")print(df)

Following is theoutput of the above code −

Input DataFrame:  Animal  Legs0    dog     41   lion     42  panda     2DataFrame after applying center with width=8 and fillchar='-':    Animal  Legs0  --dog---     41  --lion--     42  -panda--     2

Example 3

In this example, we apply theSeries.str.center() method to an Index object. This showcases how you can use it to format the index labels in a DataFrame by centering them with a specified width and fill character.

import pandas as pd# Create a DataFrame with an Indexdf = pd.DataFrame({'Value': [1, 2, 3]}, index=['first', 'second', 'third'])# Display the Input DataFrameprint("Input DataFrame:")print(df)# Center the index labels with a width of 10 and fill character '*'df.index = df.index.str.center(10, fillchar='*')# Display the Modified DataFrameprint("Modified DataFrame:")print(df)

Output of the above code is as follows −

Input DataFrame:        Valuefirst       1second      2third       3Modified DataFrame:            Value**first***      1**second**      2**third***      3