Pandas: working with tabular data#
Pandas is one of the most famous python libraries for science, data science, and machine learning. It excels at manipulating tabular data, i.e. the kind of data you would have in a spreadsheet, a csv file, or weather station data.
Installing pandas#
If you need to refresh your memory about installing python packages, revisit the unit on the subject.
To install pandas, open the condaforge prompt, activate the environment you want to install pandas into, and type:
mamba install pandas
Importing pandas#
Like numpy, we can access all of pandas functionalities with a simple import command. The convention is to import pandas as pd:
import pandas as pd
Getting started with pandas#
Pandas is a fantastic library: it will take you minutes to grasp the fundamentals, and years to master it: this is what I like most about it ;-).
For today, I strongly recommend to follow the various tutorials on the getting started page of the pandas documentation. If you are short on time, focus on:
The other tutorials are very useful as well and should be read sooner or later for the end of semester project. Start now if you have time!
Learning checklist#