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Could someone please help me understand what a "dataframe" is? I see this term thrown around occasionally, but failed to find a definition/explanation for someo

by akavel 5y ago

Could someone please help me understand what a "dataframe" is? I see this term thrown around occasionally, but failed to find a definition/explanation for someone who doesn't actually already know what it is :(

armanboyaci 5y ago
This article might help: "Is a Dataframe Just a Table?" https://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2020/11960/pdf/OASIcs-PLATEAU-2019-6.pdf https://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2020/11960/pdf/OASI...
enriquto 5y ago
I hate dataframes, but the definition is just a 2d array of numbers with names on the rows and columns.
- jstx1 5y ago
  They don't have to be numbers, you can have any data type but the type is always consistent along each column.
teej 5y ago
It’s a special data structure that holds a 2 dimensional array and allows you to perform very efficient “vector” (all rows/all columns) operations on it. It’s used a lot in data science applications, particularly for matrix math.
omnicognate 5y ago
In this context it's a specific class, DataFrame, in the pandas library: https://pandas.pydata.org/pandas-docs/stable/reference/api/pandas.DataFrame.html https://pandas.pydata.org/pandas-docs/stable/reference/api/p... > Two-dimensional, size-mutable, potentially heterogeneous tabular data. > Data structure also contains labeled axes (rows and columns). Arithmetic operations align on both row and column labels. Can be thought of as a dict-like container for Series objects. The primary pandas data structure.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Zababa 5y ago
A dataframe is usually a list of columns. Columns are usually typed arrays that have a name. It's a bit like a struct of arrays (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AoS_and_SoA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AoS_and_SoA) except that you can usually easily transform the dataframe (add columns, split columns, stuff like that).
jstx1 5y ago
It's a table. Think of a table from a database or a 2-dimensional csv file that exists as an object in your programming language of choice. The exact implementation is different in different languages and libraries. In Python the most popular one is the DataFrame class from the pandas library, R has data.frame built in, Julia has DataFrames.jl and there are other implementations too - spark, dask, data.table, tibble etc. The easiest way for this is to click is open up Python or R and play around with a dataframe, it really isn't that complicated.
heresie-dabord 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panel_data https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panel_data

by akavel 5y ago

armanboyaci 5y ago

This article might help: "Is a Dataframe Just a Table?" https://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2020/11960/pdf/OASIcs-PLATEAU-2019-6.pdf https://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2020/11960/pdf/OASI...

enriquto 5y ago

I hate dataframes, but the definition is just a 2d array of numbers with names on the rows and columns.

jstx1 5y ago
They don't have to be numbers, you can have any data type but the type is always consistent along each column.

teej 5y ago

It’s a special data structure that holds a 2 dimensional array and allows you to perform very efficient “vector” (all rows/all columns) operations on it. It’s used a lot in data science applications, particularly for matrix math.

omnicognate 5y ago

In this context it's a specific class, DataFrame, in the pandas library: https://pandas.pydata.org/pandas-docs/stable/reference/api/pandas.DataFrame.html https://pandas.pydata.org/pandas-docs/stable/reference/api/p... > Two-dimensional, size-mutable, potentially heterogeneous tabular data. > Data structure also contains labeled axes (rows and columns). Arithmetic operations align on both row and column labels. Can be thought of as a dict-like container for Series objects. The primary pandas data structure.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Zababa 5y ago

A dataframe is usually a list of columns. Columns are usually typed arrays that have a name. It's a bit like a struct of arrays (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AoS_and_SoA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AoS_and_SoA) except that you can usually easily transform the dataframe (add columns, split columns, stuff like that).

jstx1 5y ago

It's a table. Think of a table from a database or a 2-dimensional csv file that exists as an object in your programming language of choice. The exact implementation is different in different languages and libraries. In Python the most popular one is the DataFrame class from the pandas library, R has data.frame built in, Julia has DataFrames.jl and there are other implementations too - spark, dask, data.table, tibble etc. The easiest way for this is to click is open up Python or R and play around with a dataframe, it really isn't that complicated.

heresie-dabord 5y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panel_data https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panel_data