DataFrames

Jesse London

The DataFrame is a type of data structure in Python, which is widely-used in Data Science, and provided by the pandas data analysis and manipulation library.

DataFrames are collections like lists. But, while lists allow you to collect elements which are themselves lists, DataFrames are built expressly for the purpose of manipulating such data easily and efficiently. This structure is “tabular” – like a spreadsheet – and also considered “two-dimensional.” Its dimensions are commonly:

a sequence of columns:

each column represents the values of a single feature of our data set

a sequence of rows:

each row represents the values of all of the features of a single individual element of our data

The following sections explore the basics of using the pandas DataFrame.