Filtering pandas data frame by a list of id's

You could use the isin method:

In [30]: df = pd.DataFrame({'subscriber_id':[1,2,3,4,5]})

In [31]: df
Out[31]: 
   subscriber_id
0              1
1              2
2              3
3              4
4              5

[5 rows x 1 columns]

In [32]: mask = df['subscriber_id'].isin([2,4,5])

In [33]: mask
Out[33]: 
0    False
1     True
2    False
3     True
4     True
Name: subscriber_id, dtype: bool

In [34]: df.loc[~mask]
Out[34]: 
   subscriber_id
0              1
2              3

[2 rows x 1 columns]

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If you use df.mask, then the input must be a boolean NDFrame or an array. lambda x: x['subscriber_id'] not in subscribers is a function, which is why it raised an exception.

Here is one way you could use df.mask, again with isin to form the boolean condition:

In [43]: df['subscriber_id'].mask(df['subscriber_id'].isin([2,4,5]).values)
Out[43]: 
0     1
1   NaN
2     3
3   NaN
4   NaN
Name: subscriber_id, dtype: float64