Pandas – Merge smaller dataframe onto a larger one

I’ve got 2 data frames like this,

df1:

columnA  columnB columnC
data1    2       d       
data1    2       d
data1    2       d
data2    3       r
data2    3       r
data3    4       g
data3    4       g

df2:

columnA   columnD  columnE
data1     a        x
data1     a        x    
data1     a        x
data2     b        y
data2     b        y

After merging I want the output like below,

Expected output:

columnA  columnB columnC columnD columnE
data1    2       d       a       x
data1    2       d       a       x
data1    2       d       a       x
data2    3       r       b       y
data2    3       r       b       y
data3    4       g
data3    4       g

Is there a way to do this?

I’ve tried,
combined = pd.merge(df1, df2, how="inner", on="columnA") but this results in more rows than originally.

>Solution :

You first need to remove the duplicates from your second dataframe:

df2_nodup = df2.drop_duplicates()

Now you can use pd.merge() to create the desired output:

>>> pd.merge(df1, df2_nodup, how='left')
  columnA  columnB columnC columnD columnE
0   data1        2       d       a       x
1   data1        2       d       a       x
2   data1        2       d       a       x
3   data2        3       r       b       y
4   data2        3       r       b       y
5   data3        4       g     NaN     NaN
6   data3        4       g     NaN     NaN