How to Check If a DataFrame is Empty

An empty DataFrame is one that does not contain any data points (i.e., rows). In this short how-to article, we will learn how to check if a Pandas or PySpark DataFrame is empty.

Pandas

We can use the empty method which returns True if the DataFrame is empty.

df.empty
True

We can also check the number of rows in a DataFrame using the len function or the shape method. If they return 0, then the DataFrame is empty.

len(df) == 0
True

df.shape[0] == 0
True

PySpark

We can count the number of rows using the count method and check if it equals to zero.

df.count() == 0
True

Another way of checking if a DataFrame is empty is the isEmpty method.

df.rdd.isEmpty()
True

This question is also being asked as:

• Removing empty DataFrames inside a dictionary

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Dor Schwartz

Dor is the Community and Partnerships Manager at Aporia.

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