def splitDataFrameList(df,target_column,separator): ''' df = dataframe to split, target_column = the column containing the values to split separator = the symbol used to perform the split returns: a dataframe with each entry for the target column separated, with each element moved into a new row. The values in the other columns are duplicated across the newly divided rows. ''' def splitListToRows(row,row_accumulator,target_column,separator): split_row = row[target_column].split(separator) for s in split_row: new_row = row.to_dict() new_row[target_column] = s row_accumulator.append(new_row) new_rows = [] df.apply(splitListToRows,axis=1,args = (new_rows,target_column,separator)) new_df = pandas.DataFrame(new_rows) return new_df