Method #1: use idxmin()
to get the indices of the elements of minimum diff
, and then select those:
>>> df.loc[df.groupby("item")["diff"].idxmin()]
item diff otherstuff
1 1 1 2
6 2 -6 2
7 3 0 0
[3 rows x 3 columns]
Method #2: sort by diff
, and then take the first element in each item
group:
>>> df.sort_values("diff").groupby("item", as_index=False).first()
item diff otherstuff
0 1 1 2
1 2 -6 2
2 3 0 0
[3 rows x 3 columns]
Note that the resulting indices are different even though the row content is the same.