Introduction to the Pandas DataFrame and Series — Master Data Analysis with Python Chapter 2

This is the second chapter from the book Master Data Analysis with Python, a comprehensive guide to mastering pandas that will help you produce trusted data analysis results in a professional environment. There are 80 chapters, 500+ exercises with detailed solutions, videos, and multiple certification exams available. Get access to the first 100 pages of the book for free here.

Chapter 2 — The DataFrame and Series

The DataFrame and Series are the two primary objects when using pandas to analyze data. In this chapter, we will learn how to read in data into a DataFrame and understand its components. We will also learn how to select a single column of data as a Series and examine its components.

Reading external data with pandas

The one thing you need for data analysis is data. If you do not have any data, then you won’t be able to use pandas to analyze it. This book contains many data sets stored externally in the data directory one level above where this notebook resides. Most of these datasets are stored as comma-separated value (CSV) files. These CSVs are human-readable and separate each individual piece of data with a comma. The comma is referred to as the…