In version 0.19.0 you can use argument dtype='category' in read_csv:
data = 'col1,col2,col3\na,b,1\na,b,2\nc,d,3'
df = pd.read_csv(pd.compat.StringIO(data), dtype='category')
print (df
)
col1 c
ol2 col3
0 a b 1
1 a b 2
2 c d 3
print (df.dtypes)
col1 category
col2 category
col3 category
dtype: object
If you want to specify a column for category use dtype with a dictionary, then just follow the code:
df = pd.read_csv(pd.compat.StringIO(data), dtype={'col1':'category'})
print (df)
col1 col2 col3
0 a b 1
1 a b 2
2 c d 3
print (df.dtypes)
col1 category
col2 object
col3 int64
dtype: object
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