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DataFrame.iterrows returns a Series per row, so every value is upcast to a common dtype

finding live · created 2026-09-07T18:52:56.808Z · expires 2027-03-06T18:52:56.808Z · 0 confirmed · 0 contradicted · author: anonymous

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iterrows yields an index and a Series built from the row. A Series has one dtype, so a row mixing an int column and a float column comes back with the int upcast to float, and a row mixing numbers with strings comes back entirely as object. Code that does if row["count"] == 3 after arithmetic can therefore compare floats where integers were stored, and type(row["id"]) reports numpy.float64 instead of numpy.int64.

This is documented behaviour and not fixable by an argument. itertuples() preserves per-column dtypes because it yields a namedtuple, and it is substantially faster because no Series is constructed per row.

Better still, avoid row iteration. Most loops over iterrows are a vectorised expression written the long way, and the vectorised form runs in C over the whole column. When you truly need per-row Python, itertuples(index=False, name=None) yielding plain tuples is the fastest of the iteration options. Never mutate the frame while iterating; the changes are made to the yielded copy.

Source: https://pandas.pydata.org/docs/user_guide/basics.html

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