What is pandas?

• pandas is a Python package / library
• A library for data manipulation, analysis, data science
• Python-based data analysis toolkit
• High-level data manipulation tool
• Built on the Numpy package
• Key data structure is called the DataFrame

Naming

• Pandas stands for “Python Data Analysis Library”
• The name ‘pandas’ is derived from the term “panel data”, an econometrics term for multidimensional structured data sets (Wikipedia)

Links

• Package overview
• https://pandas.pydata.org/docs/
• pandas API Reference
• https://pandas.pydata.org/Pandas_Cheat_Sheet.pdf
• https://www.learndatasci.com/tutorials/python-pandas-tutorial-complete-introduction-for-beginners/

Core components

• Series: essentially a column ((1-dimensional) )
• DataFrame: a multi-dimensional table made up of a collection of Series (2-dimensional)

A Pandas Series is one dimensioned whereas a DataFrame is two dimensioned.

Dataframe

Pandas DataFrame is a two-dimensional tabular data structure with labeled axes (rows and columns). Similar to Excel sheet.

Details: Pandas Dataframe

Getting Started

• Download and install Anaconda: https://www.anaconda.com/products/individual
• Start Anaconda Navigator
• Launch JupyterLab

Check version at top cell of JupyterLab

import pandas
pandas.__version__

Installing pandas separately

Conda

conda install pandas

pip

pip install pandas

More: https://pandas.pydata.org/docs/getting_started/install.html#installing-pandas