This course note was developed in Fall 2023. If you are taking this class in a future semester, please keep in mind that this note may not be up to date with course content for that semester.
Learning Outcomes
Build familiarity with pandas and pandas syntax.
Learn key data structures: DataFrame, Series, and Index.
Understand methods for extracting data: .loc, .iloc, and [].
In this sequence of lectures, we will dive right into things by having you explore and manipulate real-world data. We’ll first introduce pandas, a popular Python library for interacting with tabular data.
2.1 Tabular Data
Data scientists work with data stored in a variety of formats. The primary focus of this class is understanding tabular data — data that is stored in a table.
Tabular data is one of the most common systems that data scientists use to organize data. This is in large part due to the simplicity and flexibility of tables. Tables allow us to represent each observation, or instance of collecting data from an individual, as its own row. We can record each observation’s distinct characteristics, or features, in separate columns.
To see this in action, we’ll explore the elections dataset, which stores information about political candidates who ran for president of the United States in previous years.
Code
import pandas as pdpd.read_csv("data/elections.csv")
Year
Candidate
Party
Popular vote
Result
%
0
1824
Andrew Jackson
Democratic-Republican
151271
loss
57.210122
1
1824
John Quincy Adams
Democratic-Republican
113142
win
42.789878
2
1828
Andrew Jackson
Democratic
642806
win
56.203927
3
1828
John Quincy Adams
National Republican
500897
loss
43.796073
4
1832
Andrew Jackson
Democratic
702735
win
54.574789
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
177
2016
Jill Stein
Green
1457226
loss
1.073699
178
2020
Joseph Biden
Democratic
81268924
win
51.311515
179
2020
Donald Trump
Republican
74216154
loss
46.858542
180
2020
Jo Jorgensen
Libertarian
1865724
loss
1.177979
181
2020
Howard Hawkins
Green
405035
loss
0.255731
182 rows × 6 columns
In the elections dataset, each row represents one instance of a candidate running for president in a particular year. For example, the first row represents Andrew Jackson running for president in the year 1824. Each column represents one characteristic piece of information about each presidential candidate. For example, the column named “Result” stores whether or not the candidate won the election.
Your work in Data 8 helped you grow very familiar with using and interpreting data stored in a tabular format. Back then, you used the Table class of the datascience library, a special programming library created specifically for Data 8 students.
In Data 100, we will be working with the programming library pandas, which is generally accepted in the data science community as the industry- and academia-standard tool for manipulating tabular data (as well as the inspiration for Petey, our panda bear mascot).
Using pandas, we can
Arrange data in a tabular format.
Extract useful information filtered by specific conditions.
Operate on data to gain new insights.
Apply NumPy functions to our data (our friends from Data 8).
Perform vectorized computations to speed up our analysis (Lab 1).
2.2Series, DataFrames, and Indices
To begin our work in pandas, we must first import the library into our Python environment. This will allow us to use pandas data structures and methods in our code.
# `pd` is the conventional alias for Pandas, as `np` is for NumPyimport pandas as pd
There are three fundamental data structures in pandas:
Series: 1D labeled array data; best thought of as columnar data.
DataFrame: 2D tabular data with rows and columns.
Index: A sequence of row/column labels.
DataFrames, Series, and Indices can be represented visually in the following diagram, which considers the first few rows of the elections dataset.
Notice how the DataFrame is a two-dimensional object — it contains both rows and columns. The Series above is a singular column of this DataFrame, namely the Result column. Both contain an Index, or a shared list of row labels (the integers from 0 to 4, inclusive).
2.2.1 Series
A Series represents a column of a DataFrame; more generally, it can be any 1-dimensional array-like object. It contains:
A sequence of values of the same type.
A sequence of data labels called the index.
In the cell below, we create a Series named s.
s = pd.Series(["welcome", "to", "data 100"])s
0 welcome
1 to
2 data 100
dtype: object
s.values # Data values contained within the Series
By default, the Index of a Series is a sequential list of integers beginning from 0. Optionally, a manually specified list of desired indices can be passed to the index argument.
s = pd.Series([-1, 10, 2], index = ["a", "b", "c"])s
Much like when working with NumPy arrays, we can select a single value or a set of values from a Series. To do so, there are three primary methods:
A single label.
A list of labels.
A filtering condition.
To demonstrate this, let’s define the Series ser.
ser = pd.Series([4, -2, 0, 6], index = ["a", "b", "c", "d"])ser
a 4
b -2
c 0
d 6
dtype: int64
2.2.1.1.1 A Single Label
ser["a"] # We return the value stored at the Index label "a"
4
2.2.1.1.2 A List of Labels
ser[["a", "c"]] # We return a *Series* of the values stored at the Index labels "a" and "c"
a 4
c 0
dtype: int64
2.2.1.1.3 A Filtering Condition
Perhaps the most interesting (and useful) method of selecting data from a Series is by using a filtering condition.
First, we apply a boolean operation to the Series. This creates a new Series of boolean values.
ser >0# Filter condition: select all elements greater than 0
a True
b False
c False
d True
dtype: bool
We then use this boolean condition to index into our original Series. pandas will select only the entries in the original Series that satisfy the condition.
ser[ser >0]
a 4
d 6
dtype: int64
2.2.2 DataFrames
Typically, we will work with Series using the perspective that they are columns in a DataFrame. We can think of a DataFrame as a collection of Series that all share the same Index.
In Data 8, you encountered the Table class of the datascience library, which represented tabular data. In Data 100, we’ll be using the DataFrame class of the pandas library.
2.2.2.1 Creating a DataFrame
There are many ways to create a DataFrame. Here, we will cover the most popular approaches:
From a CSV file.
Using a list and column name(s).
From a dictionary.
From a Series.
More generally, the syntax for creating a DataFrame is: pandas.DataFrame(data, index, columns).
2.2.2.1.1 From a CSV file
In Data 100, our data are typically stored in a CSV (comma-separated values) file format. We can import a CSV file into a DataFrame by passing the data path as an argument to the following pandas function. pd.read_csv("filename.csv")
With our new understanding of pandas in hand, let’s return to the elections dataset from before. Now, we can recognize that it is represented as a pandas DataFrame.
This code stores our DataFrame object in the elections variable. Upon inspection, our elections DataFrame has 182 rows and 6 columns (Year, Candidate, Party, Popular Vote, Result, %). Each row represents a single record — in our example, a presidential candidate from some particular year. Each column represents a single attribute or feature of the record.
2.2.2.1.2 Using a List and Column Name(s)
We’ll now explore creating a DataFrame with data of our own.
Consider the following examples. The first code cell creates a DataFrame with a single column Numbers. The second creates a DataFrame with the columns Numbers and Description. Notice how a 2D list of values is required to initialize the second DataFrame — each nested list represents a single row of data.
A third (and more common) way to create a DataFrame is with a dictionary. The dictionary keys represent the column names, and the dictionary values represent the column values.
Below are two ways of implementing this approach. The first is based on specifying the columns of the DataFrame, whereas the second is based on specifying the rows of the DataFrame.
Earlier, we explained how a Series was synonymous to a column in a DataFrame. It follows, then, that a DataFrame is equivalent to a collection of Series, which all share the same Index.
In fact, we can initialize a DataFrame by merging two or more Series.
# Notice how our indices, or row labels, are the sames_a = pd.Series(["a1", "a2", "a3"], index = ["r1", "r2", "r3"])s_b = pd.Series(["b1", "b2", "b3"], index = ["r1", "r2", "r3"])pd.DataFrame({"A-column": s_a, "B-column": s_b})
A-column
B-column
r1
a1
b1
r2
a2
b2
r3
a3
b3
pd.DataFrame(s_a)
0
r1
a1
r2
a2
r3
a3
s_a.to_frame()
0
r1
a1
r2
a2
r3
a3
2.2.3 Indices
On a more technical note, an Index doesn’t have to be an integer, nor does it have to be unique. For example, we can set the index of the elections Dataframe to be the name of presidential candidates.
# Creating a DataFrame from a CSV file and specifying the Index columnelections = pd.read_csv("data/elections.csv", index_col ="Candidate")elections
Year
Party
Popular vote
Result
%
Candidate
Andrew Jackson
1824
Democratic-Republican
151271
loss
57.210122
John Quincy Adams
1824
Democratic-Republican
113142
win
42.789878
Andrew Jackson
1828
Democratic
642806
win
56.203927
John Quincy Adams
1828
National Republican
500897
loss
43.796073
Andrew Jackson
1832
Democratic
702735
win
54.574789
...
...
...
...
...
...
Jill Stein
2016
Green
1457226
loss
1.073699
Joseph Biden
2020
Democratic
81268924
win
51.311515
Donald Trump
2020
Republican
74216154
loss
46.858542
Jo Jorgensen
2020
Libertarian
1865724
loss
1.177979
Howard Hawkins
2020
Green
405035
loss
0.255731
182 rows × 5 columns
We can also select a new column and set it as the index of the DataFrame. For example, we can set the index of the elections Dataframe to represent the candidate’s party.
elections.reset_index(inplace =True) # Resetting the index so we can set the Index again# This sets the index to the "Party" columnelections.set_index("Party")
Candidate
Year
Popular vote
Result
%
Party
Democratic-Republican
Andrew Jackson
1824
151271
loss
57.210122
Democratic-Republican
John Quincy Adams
1824
113142
win
42.789878
Democratic
Andrew Jackson
1828
642806
win
56.203927
National Republican
John Quincy Adams
1828
500897
loss
43.796073
Democratic
Andrew Jackson
1832
702735
win
54.574789
...
...
...
...
...
...
Green
Jill Stein
2016
1457226
loss
1.073699
Democratic
Joseph Biden
2020
81268924
win
51.311515
Republican
Donald Trump
2020
74216154
loss
46.858542
Libertarian
Jo Jorgensen
2020
1865724
loss
1.177979
Green
Howard Hawkins
2020
405035
loss
0.255731
182 rows × 5 columns
And, if we’d like, we can revert the index back to the default list of integers.
# This resets the index to be the default list of integerelections.reset_index(inplace=True) elections.index
RangeIndex(start=0, stop=182, step=1)
It is also important to note that the row labels that constitute an index don’t have to be unique. While index values can be unique and numeric, acting as a row number, they can also be named and non-unique.
Here we see unique and numeric index values.
However, here the index values here are non-unique.
2.3DataFrame Attributes: Index, Columns, and Shape
On the other hand, column names in a DataFrame are almost always unique. Looking back to the elections dataset, it wouldn’t make sense to have two columns named “Candidate”.
Sometimes, you’ll want to extract these different values, in particular, the list of row and column labels.
And for the shape of the DataFrame, we can use DataFrame.shape:
elections.shape
(182, 6)
2.4 Slicing in DataFrames
Now that we’ve learned more about DataFrames, let’s dive deeper into their capabilities.
The API (Application Programming Interface) for the DataFrame class is enormous. In this section, we’ll discuss several methods of the DataFrame API that allow us to extract subsets of data.
The simplest way to manipulate a DataFrame is to extract a subset of rows and columns, known as slicing.
Common ways we may want to extract data are grabbing:
The first or last n rows in the DataFrame.
Data with a certain label.
Data at a certain position.
We will do so with four primary methods of the DataFrame class:
.head and .tail
.loc
.iloc
[]
2.4.1 Extracting data with .head and .tail
The simplest scenario in which we want to extract data is when we simply want to select the first or last few rows of the DataFrame.
To extract the first n rows of a DataFrame df, we use the syntax df.head(n).
elections = pd.read_csv("data/elections.csv")# Extract the first 5 rows of the DataFrameelections.head(5)
Year
Candidate
Party
Popular vote
Result
%
0
1824
Andrew Jackson
Democratic-Republican
151271
loss
57.210122
1
1824
John Quincy Adams
Democratic-Republican
113142
win
42.789878
2
1828
Andrew Jackson
Democratic
642806
win
56.203927
3
1828
John Quincy Adams
National Republican
500897
loss
43.796073
4
1832
Andrew Jackson
Democratic
702735
win
54.574789
Similarly, calling df.tail(n) allows us to extract the last n rows of the DataFrame.
# Extract the last 5 rows of the DataFrameelections.tail(5)
Year
Candidate
Party
Popular vote
Result
%
177
2016
Jill Stein
Green
1457226
loss
1.073699
178
2020
Joseph Biden
Democratic
81268924
win
51.311515
179
2020
Donald Trump
Republican
74216154
loss
46.858542
180
2020
Jo Jorgensen
Libertarian
1865724
loss
1.177979
181
2020
Howard Hawkins
Green
405035
loss
0.255731
2.4.2 Label-based Extraction: Indexing with .loc
For the more complex task of extracting data with specific column or index labels, we can use .loc. The .loc accessor allows us to specify the labels of rows and columns we wish to extract. The labels (commonly referred to as the indices) are the bold text on the far left of a DataFrame, while the column labels are the column names found at the top of a DataFrame.
To grab data with .loc, we must specify the row and column label(s) where the data exists. The row labels are the first argument to the .loc function; the column labels are the second.
Arguments to .loc can be:
A single value.
A slice.
A list.
For example, to select a single value, we can select the row labeled 0 and the column labeled Candidate from the electionsDataFrame.
elections.loc[0, 'Candidate']
'Andrew Jackson'
Keep in mind that passing in just one argument as a single value will produce a Series. Below, we’ve extracted a subset of the "Popular vote" column as a Series.
To select multiple rows and columns, we can use Python slice notation. Here, we select the rows from labels 0 to 3 and the columns from labels "Year" to "Popular vote".
elections.loc[0:3, 'Year':'Popular vote']
Year
Candidate
Party
Popular vote
0
1824
Andrew Jackson
Democratic-Republican
151271
1
1824
John Quincy Adams
Democratic-Republican
113142
2
1828
Andrew Jackson
Democratic
642806
3
1828
John Quincy Adams
National Republican
500897
Suppose that instead, we want to extract all column values for the first four rows in the elections DataFrame. The shorthand : is useful for this.
elections.loc[0:3, :]
Year
Candidate
Party
Popular vote
Result
%
0
1824
Andrew Jackson
Democratic-Republican
151271
loss
57.210122
1
1824
John Quincy Adams
Democratic-Republican
113142
win
42.789878
2
1828
Andrew Jackson
Democratic
642806
win
56.203927
3
1828
John Quincy Adams
National Republican
500897
loss
43.796073
We can use the same shorthand to extract all rows.
elections.loc[:, ["Year", "Candidate", "Result"]]
Year
Candidate
Result
0
1824
Andrew Jackson
loss
1
1824
John Quincy Adams
win
2
1828
Andrew Jackson
win
3
1828
John Quincy Adams
loss
4
1832
Andrew Jackson
win
...
...
...
...
177
2016
Jill Stein
loss
178
2020
Joseph Biden
win
179
2020
Donald Trump
loss
180
2020
Jo Jorgensen
loss
181
2020
Howard Hawkins
loss
182 rows × 3 columns
There are a couple of things we should note. Firstly, unlike conventional Python, pandas allows us to slice string values (in our example, the column labels). Secondly, slicing with .loc is inclusive. Notice how our resulting DataFrame includes every row and column between and including the slice labels we specified.
Equivalently, we can use a list to obtain multiple rows and columns in our elections DataFrame.
Lastly, we can interchange list and slicing notation.
elections.loc[[0, 1, 2, 3], :]
Year
Candidate
Party
Popular vote
Result
%
0
1824
Andrew Jackson
Democratic-Republican
151271
loss
57.210122
1
1824
John Quincy Adams
Democratic-Republican
113142
win
42.789878
2
1828
Andrew Jackson
Democratic
642806
win
56.203927
3
1828
John Quincy Adams
National Republican
500897
loss
43.796073
2.4.3 Integer-based Extraction: Indexing with .iloc
Slicing with .iloc works similarly to .loc. However, .iloc uses the index positions of rows and columns rather than the labels (think to yourself: loc uses lables; iloc uses indices). The arguments to the .iloc function also behave similarly — single values, lists, indices, and any combination of these are permitted.
Let’s begin reproducing our results from above. We’ll begin by selecting the first presidential candidate in our elections DataFrame:
Notice how the first argument to both .loc and .iloc are the same. This is because the row with a label of 0 is conveniently in the \(0^{th}\) (equivalently, the first position) of the elections DataFrame. Generally, this is true of any DataFrame where the row labels are incremented in ascending order from 0.
And, as before, if we were to pass in only one single value argument, our result would be a Series.
elections.iloc[[1,2,3],1]
1 John Quincy Adams
2 Andrew Jackson
3 John Quincy Adams
Name: Candidate, dtype: object
However, when we select the first four rows and columns using .iloc, we notice something.
Slicing is no longer inclusive in .iloc — it’s exclusive. In other words, the right end of a slice is not included when using .iloc. This is one of the subtleties of pandas syntax; you will get used to it with practice.
And just like with .loc, we can use a colon with .iloc to extract all rows or columns.
elections.iloc[:, 0:3]
Year
Candidate
Party
0
1824
Andrew Jackson
Democratic-Republican
1
1824
John Quincy Adams
Democratic-Republican
2
1828
Andrew Jackson
Democratic
3
1828
John Quincy Adams
National Republican
4
1832
Andrew Jackson
Democratic
...
...
...
...
177
2016
Jill Stein
Green
178
2020
Joseph Biden
Democratic
179
2020
Donald Trump
Republican
180
2020
Jo Jorgensen
Libertarian
181
2020
Howard Hawkins
Green
182 rows × 3 columns
This discussion begs the question: When should we use .loc vs. .iloc? In most cases, .loc is generally safer to use. You can imagine .iloc may return incorrect values when applied to a dataset where the ordering of data can change. However, .iloc can still be useful — for example, if you are looking at a DataFrame of sorted movie earnings and want to get the median earnings for a given year, you can use .iloc to index into the middle.
Overall, it is important to remember that:
.loc performances label-based extraction.
.iloc performs integer-based extraction.
2.4.4 Context-dependent Extraction: Indexing with []
The [] selection operator is the most baffling of all, yet the most commonly used. It only takes a single argument, which may be one of the following:
A slice of row numbers.
A list of column labels.
A single-column label.
That is, [] is context-dependent. Let’s see some examples.
2.4.4.1 A slice of row numbers
Say we wanted the first four rows of our elections DataFrame.
Lastly, [] allows us to extract only the Candidate column.
elections["Candidate"]
0 Andrew Jackson
1 John Quincy Adams
2 Andrew Jackson
3 John Quincy Adams
4 Andrew Jackson
...
177 Jill Stein
178 Joseph Biden
179 Donald Trump
180 Jo Jorgensen
181 Howard Hawkins
Name: Candidate, Length: 182, dtype: object
The output is a Series! In this course, we’ll become very comfortable with [], especially for selecting columns. In practice, [] is much more common than .loc, especially since it is far more concise.
2.5 Parting Note
The pandas library is enormous and contains many useful functions. Here is a link to documentation. We certainly don’t expect you to memorize each and every method of the library.
The introductory Data 100 pandas lectures will provide a high-level view of the key data structures and methods that will form the foundation of your pandas knowledge. A goal of this course is to help you build your familiarity with the real-world programming practice of …Googling! Answers to your questions can be found in documentation, Stack Overflow, etc. Being able to search for, read, and implement documentation is an important life skill for any data scientist.