10 Minutes to pandas¶
This is a short introduction to pandas, geared mainly for new users. You can see more complex recipes in the Cookbook
Customarily, we import as follows:
In [1]: import pandas as pd
In [2]: import numpy as np
In [3]: import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
Object Creation¶
See the Data Structure Intro section
Creating a Series by passing a list of values, letting pandas create a default integer index:
In [4]: s = pd.Series([1,3,5,np.nan,6,8])
In [5]: s
Out[5]: 
0    1.0
1    3.0
2    5.0
3    NaN
4    6.0
5    8.0
dtype: float64
Creating a DataFrame by passing a numpy array, with a datetime index and labeled columns:
In [6]: dates = pd.date_range('20130101', periods=6)
In [7]: dates
Out[7]: 
DatetimeIndex(['2013-01-01', '2013-01-02', '2013-01-03', '2013-01-04',
               '2013-01-05', '2013-01-06'],
              dtype='datetime64[ns]', freq='D')
In [8]: df = pd.DataFrame(np.random.randn(6,4), index=dates, columns=list('ABCD'))
In [9]: df
Out[9]: 
                   A         B         C         D
2013-01-01  0.469112 -0.282863 -1.509059 -1.135632
2013-01-02  1.212112 -0.173215  0.119209 -1.044236
2013-01-03 -0.861849 -2.104569 -0.494929  1.071804
2013-01-04  0.721555 -0.706771 -1.039575  0.271860
2013-01-05 -0.424972  0.567020  0.276232 -1.087401
2013-01-06 -0.673690  0.113648 -1.478427  0.524988
Creating a DataFrame by passing a dict of objects that can be converted to series-like.
In [10]: df2 = pd.DataFrame({ 'A' : 1.,
   ....:                      'B' : pd.Timestamp('20130102'),
   ....:                      'C' : pd.Series(1,index=list(range(4)),dtype='float32'),
   ....:                      'D' : np.array([3] * 4,dtype='int32'),
   ....:                      'E' : pd.Categorical(["test","train","test","train"]),
   ....:                      'F' : 'foo' })
   ....: 
In [11]: df2
Out[11]: 
     A          B    C  D      E    F
0  1.0 2013-01-02  1.0  3   test  foo
1  1.0 2013-01-02  1.0  3  train  foo
2  1.0 2013-01-02  1.0  3   test  foo
3  1.0 2013-01-02  1.0  3  train  foo
Having specific dtypes
In [12]: df2.dtypes
Out[12]: 
A           float64
B    datetime64[ns]
C           float32
D             int32
E          category
F            object
dtype: object
If you’re using IPython, tab completion for column names (as well as public attributes) is automatically enabled. Here’s a subset of the attributes that will be completed:
In [13]: df2.<TAB>
df2.A                  df2.boxplot
df2.abs                df2.C
df2.add                df2.clip
df2.add_prefix         df2.clip_lower
df2.add_suffix         df2.clip_upper
df2.align              df2.columns
df2.all                df2.combine
df2.any                df2.combineAdd
df2.append             df2.combine_first
df2.apply              df2.combineMult
df2.applymap           df2.compound
df2.as_blocks          df2.consolidate
df2.asfreq             df2.convert_objects
df2.as_matrix          df2.copy
df2.astype             df2.corr
df2.at                 df2.corrwith
df2.at_time            df2.count
df2.axes               df2.cov
df2.B                  df2.cummax
df2.between_time       df2.cummin
df2.bfill              df2.cumprod
df2.blocks             df2.cumsum
df2.bool               df2.D
As you can see, the columns A, B, C, and D are automatically tab completed. E is there as well; the rest of the attributes have been truncated for brevity.
Viewing Data¶
See the Basics section
See the top & bottom rows of the frame
In [14]: df.head()
Out[14]: 
                   A         B         C         D
2013-01-01  0.469112 -0.282863 -1.509059 -1.135632
2013-01-02  1.212112 -0.173215  0.119209 -1.044236
2013-01-03 -0.861849 -2.104569 -0.494929  1.071804
2013-01-04  0.721555 -0.706771 -1.039575  0.271860
2013-01-05 -0.424972  0.567020  0.276232 -1.087401
In [15]: df.tail(3)
Out[15]: 
                   A         B         C         D
2013-01-04  0.721555 -0.706771 -1.039575  0.271860
2013-01-05 -0.424972  0.567020  0.276232 -1.087401
2013-01-06 -0.673690  0.113648 -1.478427  0.524988
Display the index, columns, and the underlying numpy data
In [16]: df.index
Out[16]: 
DatetimeIndex(['2013-01-01', '2013-01-02', '2013-01-03', '2013-01-04',
               '2013-01-05', '2013-01-06'],
              dtype='datetime64[ns]', freq='D')
In [17]: df.columns
Out[17]: Index([u'A', u'B', u'C', u'D'], dtype='object')
In [18]: df.values
Out[18]: 
array([[ 0.4691, -0.2829, -1.5091, -1.1356],
       [ 1.2121, -0.1732,  0.1192, -1.0442],
       [-0.8618, -2.1046, -0.4949,  1.0718],
       [ 0.7216, -0.7068, -1.0396,  0.2719],
       [-0.425 ,  0.567 ,  0.2762, -1.0874],
       [-0.6737,  0.1136, -1.4784,  0.525 ]])
Describe shows a quick statistic summary of your data
In [19]: df.describe()
Out[19]: 
              A         B         C         D
count  6.000000  6.000000  6.000000  6.000000
mean   0.073711 -0.431125 -0.687758 -0.233103
std    0.843157  0.922818  0.779887  0.973118
min   -0.861849 -2.104569 -1.509059 -1.135632
25%   -0.611510 -0.600794 -1.368714 -1.076610
50%    0.022070 -0.228039 -0.767252 -0.386188
75%    0.658444  0.041933 -0.034326  0.461706
max    1.212112  0.567020  0.276232  1.071804
Transposing your data
In [20]: df.T
Out[20]: 
   2013-01-01  2013-01-02  2013-01-03  2013-01-04  2013-01-05  2013-01-06
A    0.469112    1.212112   -0.861849    0.721555   -0.424972   -0.673690
B   -0.282863   -0.173215   -2.104569   -0.706771    0.567020    0.113648
C   -1.509059    0.119209   -0.494929   -1.039575    0.276232   -1.478427
D   -1.135632   -1.044236    1.071804    0.271860   -1.087401    0.524988
Sorting by an axis
In [21]: df.sort_index(axis=1, ascending=False)
Out[21]: 
                   D         C         B         A
2013-01-01 -1.135632 -1.509059 -0.282863  0.469112
2013-01-02 -1.044236  0.119209 -0.173215  1.212112
2013-01-03  1.071804 -0.494929 -2.104569 -0.861849
2013-01-04  0.271860 -1.039575 -0.706771  0.721555
2013-01-05 -1.087401  0.276232  0.567020 -0.424972
2013-01-06  0.524988 -1.478427  0.113648 -0.673690
Sorting by values
In [22]: df.sort_values(by='B')
Out[22]: 
                   A         B         C         D
2013-01-03 -0.861849 -2.104569 -0.494929  1.071804
2013-01-04  0.721555 -0.706771 -1.039575  0.271860
2013-01-01  0.469112 -0.282863 -1.509059 -1.135632
2013-01-02  1.212112 -0.173215  0.119209 -1.044236
2013-01-06 -0.673690  0.113648 -1.478427  0.524988
2013-01-05 -0.424972  0.567020  0.276232 -1.087401
Selection¶
Note
While standard Python / Numpy expressions for selecting and setting are intuitive and come in handy for interactive work, for production code, we recommend the optimized pandas data access methods, .at, .iat, .loc, .iloc and .ix.
See the indexing documentation Indexing and Selecting Data and MultiIndex / Advanced Indexing
Getting¶
Selecting a single column, which yields a Series, equivalent to df.A
In [23]: df['A']
Out[23]: 
2013-01-01    0.469112
2013-01-02    1.212112
2013-01-03   -0.861849
2013-01-04    0.721555
2013-01-05   -0.424972
2013-01-06   -0.673690
Freq: D, Name: A, dtype: float64
Selecting via [], which slices the rows.
In [24]: df[0:3]
Out[24]: 
                   A         B         C         D
2013-01-01  0.469112 -0.282863 -1.509059 -1.135632
2013-01-02  1.212112 -0.173215  0.119209 -1.044236
2013-01-03 -0.861849 -2.104569 -0.494929  1.071804
In [25]: df['20130102':'20130104']
Out[25]: 
                   A         B         C         D
2013-01-02  1.212112 -0.173215  0.119209 -1.044236
2013-01-03 -0.861849 -2.104569 -0.494929  1.071804
2013-01-04  0.721555 -0.706771 -1.039575  0.271860
Selection by Label¶
See more in Selection by Label
For getting a cross section using a label
In [26]: df.loc[dates[0]]
Out[26]: 
A    0.469112
B   -0.282863
C   -1.509059
D   -1.135632
Name: 2013-01-01 00:00:00, dtype: float64
Selecting on a multi-axis by label
In [27]: df.loc[:,['A','B']]
Out[27]: 
                   A         B
2013-01-01  0.469112 -0.282863
2013-01-02  1.212112 -0.173215
2013-01-03 -0.861849 -2.104569
2013-01-04  0.721555 -0.706771
2013-01-05 -0.424972  0.567020
2013-01-06 -0.673690  0.113648
Showing label slicing, both endpoints are included
In [28]: df.loc['20130102':'20130104',['A','B']]
Out[28]: 
                   A         B
2013-01-02  1.212112 -0.173215
2013-01-03 -0.861849 -2.104569
2013-01-04  0.721555 -0.706771
Reduction in the dimensions of the returned object
In [29]: df.loc['20130102',['A','B']]
Out[29]: 
A    1.212112
B   -0.173215
Name: 2013-01-02 00:00:00, dtype: float64
For getting a scalar value
In [30]: df.loc[dates[0],'A']
Out[30]: 0.46911229990718628
For getting fast access to a scalar (equiv to the prior method)
In [31]: df.at[dates[0],'A']
Out[31]: 0.46911229990718628
Selection by Position¶
See more in Selection by Position
Select via the position of the passed integers
In [32]: df.iloc[3]
Out[32]: 
A    0.721555
B   -0.706771
C   -1.039575
D    0.271860
Name: 2013-01-04 00:00:00, dtype: float64
By integer slices, acting similar to numpy/python
In [33]: df.iloc[3:5,0:2]
Out[33]: 
                   A         B
2013-01-04  0.721555 -0.706771
2013-01-05 -0.424972  0.567020
By lists of integer position locations, similar to the numpy/python style
In [34]: df.iloc[[1,2,4],[0,2]]
Out[34]: 
                   A         C
2013-01-02  1.212112  0.119209
2013-01-03 -0.861849 -0.494929
2013-01-05 -0.424972  0.276232
For slicing rows explicitly
In [35]: df.iloc[1:3,:]
Out[35]: 
                   A         B         C         D
2013-01-02  1.212112 -0.173215  0.119209 -1.044236
2013-01-03 -0.861849 -2.104569 -0.494929  1.071804
For slicing columns explicitly
In [36]: df.iloc[:,1:3]
Out[36]: 
                   B         C
2013-01-01 -0.282863 -1.509059
2013-01-02 -0.173215  0.119209
2013-01-03 -2.104569 -0.494929
2013-01-04 -0.706771 -1.039575
2013-01-05  0.567020  0.276232
2013-01-06  0.113648 -1.478427
For getting a value explicitly
In [37]: df.iloc[1,1]
Out[37]: -0.17321464905330858
For getting fast access to a scalar (equiv to the prior method)
In [38]: df.iat[1,1]
Out[38]: -0.17321464905330858
Boolean Indexing¶
Using a single column’s values to select data.
In [39]: df[df.A > 0]
Out[39]: 
                   A         B         C         D
2013-01-01  0.469112 -0.282863 -1.509059 -1.135632
2013-01-02  1.212112 -0.173215  0.119209 -1.044236
2013-01-04  0.721555 -0.706771 -1.039575  0.271860
A where operation for getting.
In [40]: df[df > 0]
Out[40]: 
                   A         B         C         D
2013-01-01  0.469112       NaN       NaN       NaN
2013-01-02  1.212112       NaN  0.119209       NaN
2013-01-03       NaN       NaN       NaN  1.071804
2013-01-04  0.721555       NaN       NaN  0.271860
2013-01-05       NaN  0.567020  0.276232       NaN
2013-01-06       NaN  0.113648       NaN  0.524988
Using the isin() method for filtering:
In [41]: df2 = df.copy()
In [42]: df2['E'] = ['one', 'one','two','three','four','three']
In [43]: df2
Out[43]: 
                   A         B         C         D      E
2013-01-01  0.469112 -0.282863 -1.509059 -1.135632    one
2013-01-02  1.212112 -0.173215  0.119209 -1.044236    one
2013-01-03 -0.861849 -2.104569 -0.494929  1.071804    two
2013-01-04  0.721555 -0.706771 -1.039575  0.271860  three
2013-01-05 -0.424972  0.567020  0.276232 -1.087401   four
2013-01-06 -0.673690  0.113648 -1.478427  0.524988  three
In [44]: df2[df2['E'].isin(['two','four'])]
Out[44]: 
                   A         B         C         D     E
2013-01-03 -0.861849 -2.104569 -0.494929  1.071804   two
2013-01-05 -0.424972  0.567020  0.276232 -1.087401  four
Setting¶
Setting a new column automatically aligns the data by the indexes
In [45]: s1 = pd.Series([1,2,3,4,5,6], index=pd.date_range('20130102', periods=6))
In [46]: s1
Out[46]: 
2013-01-02    1
2013-01-03    2
2013-01-04    3
2013-01-05    4
2013-01-06    5
2013-01-07    6
Freq: D, dtype: int64
In [47]: df['F'] = s1
Setting values by label
In [48]: df.at[dates[0],'A'] = 0
Setting values by position
In [49]: df.iat[0,1] = 0
Setting by assigning with a numpy array
In [50]: df.loc[:,'D'] = np.array([5] * len(df))
The result of the prior setting operations
In [51]: df
Out[51]: 
                   A         B         C  D    F
2013-01-01  0.000000  0.000000 -1.509059  5  NaN
2013-01-02  1.212112 -0.173215  0.119209  5  1.0
2013-01-03 -0.861849 -2.104569 -0.494929  5  2.0
2013-01-04  0.721555 -0.706771 -1.039575  5  3.0
2013-01-05 -0.424972  0.567020  0.276232  5  4.0
2013-01-06 -0.673690  0.113648 -1.478427  5  5.0
A where operation with setting.
In [52]: df2 = df.copy()
In [53]: df2[df2 > 0] = -df2
In [54]: df2
Out[54]: 
                   A         B         C  D    F
2013-01-01  0.000000  0.000000 -1.509059 -5  NaN
2013-01-02 -1.212112 -0.173215 -0.119209 -5 -1.0
2013-01-03 -0.861849 -2.104569 -0.494929 -5 -2.0
2013-01-04 -0.721555 -0.706771 -1.039575 -5 -3.0
2013-01-05 -0.424972 -0.567020 -0.276232 -5 -4.0
2013-01-06 -0.673690 -0.113648 -1.478427 -5 -5.0
Missing Data¶
pandas primarily uses the value np.nan to represent missing data. It is by default not included in computations. See the Missing Data section
Reindexing allows you to change/add/delete the index on a specified axis. This returns a copy of the data.
In [55]: df1 = df.reindex(index=dates[0:4], columns=list(df.columns) + ['E'])
In [56]: df1.loc[dates[0]:dates[1],'E'] = 1
In [57]: df1
Out[57]: 
                   A         B         C  D    F    E
2013-01-01  0.000000  0.000000 -1.509059  5  NaN  1.0
2013-01-02  1.212112 -0.173215  0.119209  5  1.0  1.0
2013-01-03 -0.861849 -2.104569 -0.494929  5  2.0  NaN
2013-01-04  0.721555 -0.706771 -1.039575  5  3.0  NaN
To drop any rows that have missing data.
In [58]: df1.dropna(how='any')
Out[58]: 
                   A         B         C  D    F    E
2013-01-02  1.212112 -0.173215  0.119209  5  1.0  1.0
Filling missing data
In [59]: df1.fillna(value=5)
Out[59]: 
                   A         B         C  D    F    E
2013-01-01  0.000000  0.000000 -1.509059  5  5.0  1.0
2013-01-02  1.212112 -0.173215  0.119209  5  1.0  1.0
2013-01-03 -0.861849 -2.104569 -0.494929  5  2.0  5.0
2013-01-04  0.721555 -0.706771 -1.039575  5  3.0  5.0
To get the boolean mask where values are nan
In [60]: pd.isnull(df1)
Out[60]: 
                A      B      C      D      F      E
2013-01-01  False  False  False  False   True  False
2013-01-02  False  False  False  False  False  False
2013-01-03  False  False  False  False  False   True
2013-01-04  False  False  False  False  False   True
Operations¶
See the Basic section on Binary Ops
Stats¶
Operations in general exclude missing data.
Performing a descriptive statistic
In [61]: df.mean()
Out[61]: 
A   -0.004474
B   -0.383981
C   -0.687758
D    5.000000
F    3.000000
dtype: float64
Same operation on the other axis
In [62]: df.mean(1)
Out[62]: 
2013-01-01    0.872735
2013-01-02    1.431621
2013-01-03    0.707731
2013-01-04    1.395042
2013-01-05    1.883656
2013-01-06    1.592306
Freq: D, dtype: float64
Operating with objects that have different dimensionality and need alignment. In addition, pandas automatically broadcasts along the specified dimension.
In [63]: s = pd.Series([1,3,5,np.nan,6,8], index=dates).shift(2)
In [64]: s
Out[64]: 
2013-01-01    NaN
2013-01-02    NaN
2013-01-03    1.0
2013-01-04    3.0
2013-01-05    5.0
2013-01-06    NaN
Freq: D, dtype: float64
In [65]: df.sub(s, axis='index')
Out[65]: 
                   A         B         C    D    F
2013-01-01       NaN       NaN       NaN  NaN  NaN
2013-01-02       NaN       NaN       NaN  NaN  NaN
2013-01-03 -1.861849 -3.104569 -1.494929  4.0  1.0
2013-01-04 -2.278445 -3.706771 -4.039575  2.0  0.0
2013-01-05 -5.424972 -4.432980 -4.723768  0.0 -1.0
2013-01-06       NaN       NaN       NaN  NaN  NaN
Apply¶
Applying functions to the data
In [66]: df.apply(np.cumsum)
Out[66]: 
                   A         B         C   D     F
2013-01-01  0.000000  0.000000 -1.509059   5   NaN
2013-01-02  1.212112 -0.173215 -1.389850  10   1.0
2013-01-03  0.350263 -2.277784 -1.884779  15   3.0
2013-01-04  1.071818 -2.984555 -2.924354  20   6.0
2013-01-05  0.646846 -2.417535 -2.648122  25  10.0
2013-01-06 -0.026844 -2.303886 -4.126549  30  15.0
In [67]: df.apply(lambda x: x.max() - x.min())
Out[67]: 
A    2.073961
B    2.671590
C    1.785291
D    0.000000
F    4.000000
dtype: float64
Histogramming¶
See more at Histogramming and Discretization
In [68]: s = pd.Series(np.random.randint(0, 7, size=10))
In [69]: s
Out[69]: 
0    4
1    2
2    1
3    2
4    6
5    4
6    4
7    6
8    4
9    4
dtype: int64
In [70]: s.value_counts()
Out[70]: 
4    5
6    2
2    2
1    1
dtype: int64
String Methods¶
Series is equipped with a set of string processing methods in the str attribute that make it easy to operate on each element of the array, as in the code snippet below. Note that pattern-matching in str generally uses regular expressions by default (and in some cases always uses them). See more at Vectorized String Methods.
In [71]: s = pd.Series(['A', 'B', 'C', 'Aaba', 'Baca', np.nan, 'CABA', 'dog', 'cat'])
In [72]: s.str.lower()
Out[72]: 
0       a
1       b
2       c
3    aaba
4    baca
5     NaN
6    caba
7     dog
8     cat
dtype: object
Merge¶
Concat¶
pandas provides various facilities for easily combining together Series, DataFrame, and Panel objects with various kinds of set logic for the indexes and relational algebra functionality in the case of join / merge-type operations.
See the Merging section
Concatenating pandas objects together with concat():
In [73]: df = pd.DataFrame(np.random.randn(10, 4))
In [74]: df
Out[74]: 
          0         1         2         3
0 -0.548702  1.467327 -1.015962 -0.483075
1  1.637550 -1.217659 -0.291519 -1.745505
2 -0.263952  0.991460 -0.919069  0.266046
3 -0.709661  1.669052  1.037882 -1.705775
4 -0.919854 -0.042379  1.247642 -0.009920
5  0.290213  0.495767  0.362949  1.548106
6 -1.131345 -0.089329  0.337863 -0.945867
7 -0.932132  1.956030  0.017587 -0.016692
8 -0.575247  0.254161 -1.143704  0.215897
9  1.193555 -0.077118 -0.408530 -0.862495
# break it into pieces
In [75]: pieces = [df[:3], df[3:7], df[7:]]
In [76]: pd.concat(pieces)
Out[76]: 
          0         1         2         3
0 -0.548702  1.467327 -1.015962 -0.483075
1  1.637550 -1.217659 -0.291519 -1.745505
2 -0.263952  0.991460 -0.919069  0.266046
3 -0.709661  1.669052  1.037882 -1.705775
4 -0.919854 -0.042379  1.247642 -0.009920
5  0.290213  0.495767  0.362949  1.548106
6 -1.131345 -0.089329  0.337863 -0.945867
7 -0.932132  1.956030  0.017587 -0.016692
8 -0.575247  0.254161 -1.143704  0.215897
9  1.193555 -0.077118 -0.408530 -0.862495
Join¶
SQL style merges. See the Database style joining
In [77]: left = pd.DataFrame({'key': ['foo', 'foo'], 'lval': [1, 2]})
In [78]: right = pd.DataFrame({'key': ['foo', 'foo'], 'rval': [4, 5]})
In [79]: left
Out[79]: 
   key  lval
0  foo     1
1  foo     2
In [80]: right
Out[80]: 
   key  rval
0  foo     4
1  foo     5
In [81]: pd.merge(left, right, on='key')
Out[81]: 
   key  lval  rval
0  foo     1     4
1  foo     1     5
2  foo     2     4
3  foo     2     5
Append¶
Append rows to a dataframe. See the Appending
In [82]: df = pd.DataFrame(np.random.randn(8, 4), columns=['A','B','C','D'])
In [83]: df
Out[83]: 
          A         B         C         D
0  1.346061  1.511763  1.627081 -0.990582
1 -0.441652  1.211526  0.268520  0.024580
2 -1.577585  0.396823 -0.105381 -0.532532
3  1.453749  1.208843 -0.080952 -0.264610
4 -0.727965 -0.589346  0.339969 -0.693205
5 -0.339355  0.593616  0.884345  1.591431
6  0.141809  0.220390  0.435589  0.192451
7 -0.096701  0.803351  1.715071 -0.708758
In [84]: s = df.iloc[3]
In [85]: df.append(s, ignore_index=True)
Out[85]: 
          A         B         C         D
0  1.346061  1.511763  1.627081 -0.990582
1 -0.441652  1.211526  0.268520  0.024580
2 -1.577585  0.396823 -0.105381 -0.532532
3  1.453749  1.208843 -0.080952 -0.264610
4 -0.727965 -0.589346  0.339969 -0.693205
5 -0.339355  0.593616  0.884345  1.591431
6  0.141809  0.220390  0.435589  0.192451
7 -0.096701  0.803351  1.715071 -0.708758
8  1.453749  1.208843 -0.080952 -0.264610
Grouping¶
By “group by” we are referring to a process involving one or more of the following steps
- Splitting the data into groups based on some criteria
- Applying a function to each group independently
- Combining the results into a data structure
See the Grouping section
In [86]: df = pd.DataFrame({'A' : ['foo', 'bar', 'foo', 'bar',
   ....:                           'foo', 'bar', 'foo', 'foo'],
   ....:                    'B' : ['one', 'one', 'two', 'three',
   ....:                           'two', 'two', 'one', 'three'],
   ....:                    'C' : np.random.randn(8),
   ....:                    'D' : np.random.randn(8)})
   ....: 
In [87]: df
Out[87]: 
     A      B         C         D
0  foo    one -1.202872 -0.055224
1  bar    one -1.814470  2.395985
2  foo    two  1.018601  1.552825
3  bar  three -0.595447  0.166599
4  foo    two  1.395433  0.047609
5  bar    two -0.392670 -0.136473
6  foo    one  0.007207 -0.561757
7  foo  three  1.928123 -1.623033
Grouping and then applying a function sum to the resulting groups.
In [88]: df.groupby('A').sum()
Out[88]: 
            C        D
A                     
bar -2.802588  2.42611
foo  3.146492 -0.63958
Grouping by multiple columns forms a hierarchical index, which we then apply the function.
In [89]: df.groupby(['A','B']).sum()
Out[89]: 
                  C         D
A   B                        
bar one   -1.814470  2.395985
    three -0.595447  0.166599
    two   -0.392670 -0.136473
foo one   -1.195665 -0.616981
    three  1.928123 -1.623033
    two    2.414034  1.600434
Reshaping¶
See the sections on Hierarchical Indexing and Reshaping.
Stack¶
In [90]: tuples = list(zip(*[['bar', 'bar', 'baz', 'baz',
   ....:                      'foo', 'foo', 'qux', 'qux'],
   ....:                     ['one', 'two', 'one', 'two',
   ....:                      'one', 'two', 'one', 'two']]))
   ....: 
In [91]: index = pd.MultiIndex.from_tuples(tuples, names=['first', 'second'])
In [92]: df = pd.DataFrame(np.random.randn(8, 2), index=index, columns=['A', 'B'])
In [93]: df2 = df[:4]
In [94]: df2
Out[94]: 
                     A         B
first second                    
bar   one     0.029399 -0.542108
      two     0.282696 -0.087302
baz   one    -1.575170  1.771208
      two     0.816482  1.100230
The stack() method “compresses” a level in the DataFrame’s columns.
In [95]: stacked = df2.stack()
In [96]: stacked
Out[96]: 
first  second   
bar    one     A    0.029399
               B   -0.542108
       two     A    0.282696
               B   -0.087302
baz    one     A   -1.575170
               B    1.771208
       two     A    0.816482
               B    1.100230
dtype: float64
With a “stacked” DataFrame or Series (having a MultiIndex as the index), the inverse operation of stack() is unstack(), which by default unstacks the last level:
In [97]: stacked.unstack()
Out[97]: 
                     A         B
first second                    
bar   one     0.029399 -0.542108
      two     0.282696 -0.087302
baz   one    -1.575170  1.771208
      two     0.816482  1.100230
In [98]: stacked.unstack(1)
Out[98]: 
second        one       two
first                      
bar   A  0.029399  0.282696
      B -0.542108 -0.087302
baz   A -1.575170  0.816482
      B  1.771208  1.100230
In [99]: stacked.unstack(0)
Out[99]: 
first          bar       baz
second                      
one    A  0.029399 -1.575170
       B -0.542108  1.771208
two    A  0.282696  0.816482
       B -0.087302  1.100230
Pivot Tables¶
See the section on Pivot Tables.
In [100]: df = pd.DataFrame({'A' : ['one', 'one', 'two', 'three'] * 3,
   .....:                    'B' : ['A', 'B', 'C'] * 4,
   .....:                    'C' : ['foo', 'foo', 'foo', 'bar', 'bar', 'bar'] * 2,
   .....:                    'D' : np.random.randn(12),
   .....:                    'E' : np.random.randn(12)})
   .....: 
In [101]: df
Out[101]: 
        A  B    C         D         E
0     one  A  foo  1.418757 -0.179666
1     one  B  foo -1.879024  1.291836
2     two  C  foo  0.536826 -0.009614
3   three  A  bar  1.006160  0.392149
4     one  B  bar -0.029716  0.264599
5     one  C  bar -1.146178 -0.057409
6     two  A  foo  0.100900 -1.425638
7   three  B  foo -1.035018  1.024098
8     one  C  foo  0.314665 -0.106062
9     one  A  bar -0.773723  1.824375
10    two  B  bar -1.170653  0.595974
11  three  C  bar  0.648740  1.167115
We can produce pivot tables from this data very easily:
In [102]: pd.pivot_table(df, values='D', index=['A', 'B'], columns=['C'])
Out[102]: 
C             bar       foo
A     B                    
one   A -0.773723  1.418757
      B -0.029716 -1.879024
      C -1.146178  0.314665
three A  1.006160       NaN
      B       NaN -1.035018
      C  0.648740       NaN
two   A       NaN  0.100900
      B -1.170653       NaN
      C       NaN  0.536826
Time Series¶
pandas has simple, powerful, and efficient functionality for performing resampling operations during frequency conversion (e.g., converting secondly data into 5-minutely data). This is extremely common in, but not limited to, financial applications. See the Time Series section
In [103]: rng = pd.date_range('1/1/2012', periods=100, freq='S')
In [104]: ts = pd.Series(np.random.randint(0, 500, len(rng)), index=rng)
In [105]: ts.resample('5Min').sum()
Out[105]: 
2012-01-01    25083
Freq: 5T, dtype: int64
Time zone representation
In [106]: rng = pd.date_range('3/6/2012 00:00', periods=5, freq='D')
In [107]: ts = pd.Series(np.random.randn(len(rng)), rng)
In [108]: ts
Out[108]: 
2012-03-06    0.464000
2012-03-07    0.227371
2012-03-08   -0.496922
2012-03-09    0.306389
2012-03-10   -2.290613
Freq: D, dtype: float64
In [109]: ts_utc = ts.tz_localize('UTC')
In [110]: ts_utc
Out[110]: 
2012-03-06 00:00:00+00:00    0.464000
2012-03-07 00:00:00+00:00    0.227371
2012-03-08 00:00:00+00:00   -0.496922
2012-03-09 00:00:00+00:00    0.306389
2012-03-10 00:00:00+00:00   -2.290613
Freq: D, dtype: float64
Convert to another time zone
In [111]: ts_utc.tz_convert('US/Eastern')
Out[111]: 
2012-03-05 19:00:00-05:00    0.464000
2012-03-06 19:00:00-05:00    0.227371
2012-03-07 19:00:00-05:00   -0.496922
2012-03-08 19:00:00-05:00    0.306389
2012-03-09 19:00:00-05:00   -2.290613
Freq: D, dtype: float64
Converting between time span representations
In [112]: rng = pd.date_range('1/1/2012', periods=5, freq='M')
In [113]: ts = pd.Series(np.random.randn(len(rng)), index=rng)
In [114]: ts
Out[114]: 
2012-01-31   -1.134623
2012-02-29   -1.561819
2012-03-31   -0.260838
2012-04-30    0.281957
2012-05-31    1.523962
Freq: M, dtype: float64
In [115]: ps = ts.to_period()
In [116]: ps
Out[116]: 
2012-01   -1.134623
2012-02   -1.561819
2012-03   -0.260838
2012-04    0.281957
2012-05    1.523962
Freq: M, dtype: float64
In [117]: ps.to_timestamp()
Out[117]: 
2012-01-01   -1.134623
2012-02-01   -1.561819
2012-03-01   -0.260838
2012-04-01    0.281957
2012-05-01    1.523962
Freq: MS, dtype: float64
Converting between period and timestamp enables some convenient arithmetic functions to be used. In the following example, we convert a quarterly frequency with year ending in November to 9am of the end of the month following the quarter end:
In [118]: prng = pd.period_range('1990Q1', '2000Q4', freq='Q-NOV')
In [119]: ts = pd.Series(np.random.randn(len(prng)), prng)
In [120]: ts.index = (prng.asfreq('M', 'e') + 1).asfreq('H', 's') + 9
In [121]: ts.head()
Out[121]: 
1990-03-01 09:00   -0.902937
1990-06-01 09:00    0.068159
1990-09-01 09:00   -0.057873
1990-12-01 09:00   -0.368204
1991-03-01 09:00   -1.144073
Freq: H, dtype: float64
Categoricals¶
Since version 0.15, pandas can include categorical data in a DataFrame. For full docs, see the categorical introduction and the API documentation.
In [122]: df = pd.DataFrame({"id":[1,2,3,4,5,6], "raw_grade":['a', 'b', 'b', 'a', 'a', 'e']})
Convert the raw grades to a categorical data type.
In [123]: df["grade"] = df["raw_grade"].astype("category")
In [124]: df["grade"]
Out[124]: 
0    a
1    b
2    b
3    a
4    a
5    e
Name: grade, dtype: category
Categories (3, object): [a, b, e]
Rename the categories to more meaningful names (assigning to Series.cat.categories is inplace!)
In [125]: df["grade"].cat.categories = ["very good", "good", "very bad"]
Reorder the categories and simultaneously add the missing categories (methods under Series .cat return a new Series per default).
In [126]: df["grade"] = df["grade"].cat.set_categories(["very bad", "bad", "medium", "good", "very good"])
In [127]: df["grade"]
Out[127]: 
0    very good
1         good
2         good
3    very good
4    very good
5     very bad
Name: grade, dtype: category
Categories (5, object): [very bad, bad, medium, good, very good]
Sorting is per order in the categories, not lexical order.
In [128]: df.sort_values(by="grade")
Out[128]: 
   id raw_grade      grade
5   6         e   very bad
1   2         b       good
2   3         b       good
0   1         a  very good
3   4         a  very good
4   5         a  very good
Grouping by a categorical column shows also empty categories.
In [129]: df.groupby("grade").size()
Out[129]: 
grade
very bad     1
bad          0
medium       0
good         2
very good    3
dtype: int64
Plotting¶
Plotting docs.
In [130]: ts = pd.Series(np.random.randn(1000), index=pd.date_range('1/1/2000', periods=1000))
In [131]: ts = ts.cumsum()
In [132]: ts.plot()
Out[132]: <matplotlib.axes._subplots.AxesSubplot at 0x10ee77190>
 
On DataFrame, plot() is a convenience to plot all of the columns with labels:
In [133]: df = pd.DataFrame(np.random.randn(1000, 4), index=ts.index,
   .....:                   columns=['A', 'B', 'C', 'D'])
   .....: 
In [134]: df = df.cumsum()
In [135]: plt.figure(); df.plot(); plt.legend(loc='best')
Out[135]: <matplotlib.legend.Legend at 0x11273e4d0>
 
Getting Data In/Out¶
CSV¶
In [136]: df.to_csv('foo.csv')
In [137]: pd.read_csv('foo.csv')
Out[137]: 
     Unnamed: 0          A          B         C          D
0    2000-01-01   0.266457  -0.399641 -0.219582   1.186860
1    2000-01-02  -1.170732  -0.345873  1.653061  -0.282953
2    2000-01-03  -1.734933   0.530468  2.060811  -0.515536
3    2000-01-04  -1.555121   1.452620  0.239859  -1.156896
4    2000-01-05   0.578117   0.511371  0.103552  -2.428202
5    2000-01-06   0.478344   0.449933 -0.741620  -1.962409
6    2000-01-07   1.235339  -0.091757 -1.543861  -1.084753
..          ...        ...        ...       ...        ...
993  2002-09-20 -10.628548  -9.153563 -7.883146  28.313940
994  2002-09-21 -10.390377  -8.727491 -6.399645  30.914107
995  2002-09-22  -8.985362  -8.485624 -4.669462  31.367740
996  2002-09-23  -9.558560  -8.781216 -4.499815  30.518439
997  2002-09-24  -9.902058  -9.340490 -4.386639  30.105593
998  2002-09-25 -10.216020  -9.480682 -3.933802  29.758560
999  2002-09-26 -11.856774 -10.671012 -3.216025  29.369368
[1000 rows x 5 columns]
HDF5¶
Reading and writing to HDFStores
Writing to a HDF5 Store
In [138]: df.to_hdf('foo.h5','df')
Reading from a HDF5 Store
In [139]: pd.read_hdf('foo.h5','df')
Out[139]: 
                    A          B         C          D
2000-01-01   0.266457  -0.399641 -0.219582   1.186860
2000-01-02  -1.170732  -0.345873  1.653061  -0.282953
2000-01-03  -1.734933   0.530468  2.060811  -0.515536
2000-01-04  -1.555121   1.452620  0.239859  -1.156896
2000-01-05   0.578117   0.511371  0.103552  -2.428202
2000-01-06   0.478344   0.449933 -0.741620  -1.962409
2000-01-07   1.235339  -0.091757 -1.543861  -1.084753
...               ...        ...       ...        ...
2002-09-20 -10.628548  -9.153563 -7.883146  28.313940
2002-09-21 -10.390377  -8.727491 -6.399645  30.914107
2002-09-22  -8.985362  -8.485624 -4.669462  31.367740
2002-09-23  -9.558560  -8.781216 -4.499815  30.518439
2002-09-24  -9.902058  -9.340490 -4.386639  30.105593
2002-09-25 -10.216020  -9.480682 -3.933802  29.758560
2002-09-26 -11.856774 -10.671012 -3.216025  29.369368
[1000 rows x 4 columns]
Excel¶
Reading and writing to MS Excel
Writing to an excel file
In [140]: df.to_excel('foo.xlsx', sheet_name='Sheet1')
Reading from an excel file
In [141]: pd.read_excel('foo.xlsx', 'Sheet1', index_col=None, na_values=['NA'])
Out[141]: 
                    A          B         C          D
2000-01-01   0.266457  -0.399641 -0.219582   1.186860
2000-01-02  -1.170732  -0.345873  1.653061  -0.282953
2000-01-03  -1.734933   0.530468  2.060811  -0.515536
2000-01-04  -1.555121   1.452620  0.239859  -1.156896
2000-01-05   0.578117   0.511371  0.103552  -2.428202
2000-01-06   0.478344   0.449933 -0.741620  -1.962409
2000-01-07   1.235339  -0.091757 -1.543861  -1.084753
...               ...        ...       ...        ...
2002-09-20 -10.628548  -9.153563 -7.883146  28.313940
2002-09-21 -10.390377  -8.727491 -6.399645  30.914107
2002-09-22  -8.985362  -8.485624 -4.669462  31.367740
2002-09-23  -9.558560  -8.781216 -4.499815  30.518439
2002-09-24  -9.902058  -9.340490 -4.386639  30.105593
2002-09-25 -10.216020  -9.480682 -3.933802  29.758560
2002-09-26 -11.856774 -10.671012 -3.216025  29.369368
[1000 rows x 4 columns]
Gotchas¶
If you are trying an operation and you see an exception like:
>>> if pd.Series([False, True, False]):
    print("I was true")
Traceback
    ...
ValueError: The truth value of an array is ambiguous. Use a.empty, a.any() or a.all().
See Comparisons for an explanation and what to do.
See Gotchas as well.