ValueError: Shape of passed values is (4, 4), indices imply (1, 4)

Can someone explain to me what is the cause of this error?

import pandas as pd
df = pd.DataFrame([
                 [11, 2, 5, 3],
                 [4, 35, 7, 36],
                 [4, 5, 17, 16],
                 [14, 5, 37, 6]
                  ],
    index=["col1"],             
    columns=["col1", "col2", "col3", "col4"]
)

Answer

The issue is the index=['col1'] argument. The data you’re passing to pd.DataFrame() is a list of 4 lists, where each list has 4 items, so there will be 4 rows and 4 columns.

But, you’re setting the index (row labels) to be only 1 item, when there are going to be 4 items. You need to either reduce the data to 1 row, or add 3 more items to your index=['col1'] list:

import pandas as pd
df = pd.DataFrame([
                 [11, 2, 5, 3],
                 [4, 35, 7, 36],
                 [4, 5, 17, 16],
                 [14, 5, 37, 6]
                  ],
    index=["col1", "col2", "col3", "col4"], # <--- more items added
    columns=["col1", "col2", "col3", "col4"]
)

Output:

>>> df
      col1  col2  col3  col4
col1    11     2     5     3
col2     4    35     7    36
col3     4     5    17    16
col4    14     5    37     6