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pandas.Series.diff

Series.diff(periods=1)[source]

First discrete difference of element.

Calculates the difference of a Series element compared with another element in the Series (default is element in previous row).

Parameters:

periods : int, default 1

Periods to shift for calculating difference, accepts negative values.

Returns:
diffed : Series

See also

Series.pct_change
Percent change over given number of periods.
Series.shift
Shift index by desired number of periods with an optional time freq.
DataFrame.diff
First discrete difference of object

Examples

Difference with previous row

>>> s = pd.Series([1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8])
>>> s.diff()
0    NaN
1    0.0
2    1.0
3    1.0
4    2.0
5    3.0
dtype: float64

Difference with 3rd previous row

>>> s.diff(periods=3)
0    NaN
1    NaN
2    NaN
3    2.0
4    4.0
5    6.0
dtype: float64

Difference with following row

>>> s.diff(periods=-1)
0    0.0
1   -1.0
2   -1.0
3   -2.0
4   -3.0
5    NaN
dtype: float64
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