title: Merge multiple columns into one column list with [key:value] combination in Python
body: <p>Let me preface this question by noting that the combined column is not a dictionary. The resulting dataframe has square brackets within the 'combined' column - so it appears like a list within the dataframe int he format [key1:value1, key2:value2, etc]. </p>
  
  <p>I'm trying to convert my dataframe from this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>import pandas as pd
  test = pd.DataFrame({'apples':['red','green','yellow'], 'quantity':
  [1,2,3],'tasteFactor':['yum','yum','yuck']})
  
     apples  quantity tasteFactor
  0     red         1         yum
  1   green         2         yum
  2  yellow         3        yuck
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>To this format, which is combining keys with values in each row into a new column:</p>
  
  <pre><code>   apples  quantity tasteFactor  combined
  0     red         1         yum  ['apples':'red','quantity':'1','tastefactor':'yum']
  1   green         2         yum  ['apples':'green','quantity':'2','tastefactor':'yum']
  2  yellow         3        yuck  ['apples':'yellow','quantity':'3','tastefactor':'yuck']
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Tried to turn the dataframe into a dictionary per row, but got stuck converting that into a list.</p>
  
  <pre><code>test['combined'] = test.to_dict(orient='records')
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The resulting new column doesn't need to be an actual list type. It could be a string. </p>
  
  <p>Previously asked this question here but wanted to clarify the question in the title in this question.
  <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/45670751/how-to-create-a-list-from-a-dictionary-within-a-dataframe-in-python">How to Create a List from a Dictionary within a DataFrame in Python</a></p>
  
  <p>Found the following closely related questions and tried derivations of them which gets me half the way but can't seem to get exactly the right format.</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27145148/combine-columns-in-a-pandas-dataframe-to-a-column-of-lists-in-a-dataframe">Combine columns in a Pandas DataFrame to a column of lists in a DataFrame</a></li>
  <li><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33098383/merge-multiple-column-values-into-one-column-in-python-pandas">Merge multiple column values into one column in python pandas</a></li>
  <li><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23509047/convert-dataframe-to-a-dictionary-with-list-values">Convert Dataframe to a Dictionary with List Values</a></li>
  <li><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44105375/how-to-create-a-dictionary-of-key-column-name-and-value-unique-values-in-col">How to create a dictionary of key : column_name and value : unique values in column in python from a dataframe</a></li>
  </ul>