# Pandas > Data manipulation and analysis library providing data structures and tools for cleaning, transforming, aggregating, and analyzing tabular data. - Skill: `ffsshhttiikk/pandas` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add ffsshhttiikk/pandas` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/ffsshhttiikk/pandas/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Data & Analytics - Author: ffsshhttiikk (https://skillmd.com/u/ffsshhttiikk) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/ffsshhttiikk/pandas --- # Pandas ## What I do I provide powerful data manipulation and analysis capabilities through DataFrame and Series data structures. I enable you to load data from various sources, clean and preprocess data, perform complex transformations, aggregate and group data, handle missing values, merge datasets, and conduct exploratory data analysis. I am the foundational tool for data science workflows in Python. ## When to use me - Loading and exporting data (CSV, Excel, JSON, SQL databases) - Cleaning and preprocessing messy datasets - Filtering and selecting specific data subsets - Handling missing or corrupted data - Transforming and creating new features - Grouping and aggregating data - Merging and joining multiple datasets - Time series analysis and resampling - Statistical analysis on tabular data ## Core Concepts ### Data Structures - **Series**: One-dimensional labeled array with homogeneous data - **DataFrame**: Two-dimensional labeled data structure with columns of potentially different types - **Index**: Labels for rows and columns, supports hierarchical (multi-index) structures ### Data Operations - **Selection**: `.loc[]` for label-based, `.iloc[]` for integer-based selection - **Filtering**: Boolean indexing with conditions - **Sorting**: `.sort_values()` and `.sort_index()` - **Mapping**: `.apply()`, `.map()`, `.applymap()` for element-wise operations ### Data Cleaning - **Missing Data**: `isna()`, `dropna()`, `fillna()`, `interpolate()` - **Duplicates**: `duplicated()`, `drop_duplicates()` - **Data Types**: `astype()`, `infer_objects()` - **String Operations**: `.str` accessor with regex support ### Aggregation - **GroupBy**: `.groupby()` for split-apply-combine operations - **Aggregation**: `.agg()`, `.aggregate()` with multiple functions - **Transformation**: `.transform()` maintaining original shape - **Window Functions**: `.rolling()`, `.expanding()`, `.ewm()` ### Merging and Joining - **Concatenation**: `pd.concat()` for combining along axes - **Merging**: `pd.merge()` for SQL-style joins (inner, outer, left, right) - **Join**: DataFrame method for index-based joining ## Code Examples (Python) ```python import pandas as pd import numpy as np # Creating DataFrames df = pd.DataFrame({ 'name': ['Alice', 'Bob', 'Charlie', 'David'], 'age': [25, 30, 35, 40], 'salary': [50000, 60000, 75000, 90000], 'department': ['Engineering', 'Sales', 'Engineering', 'Marketing'] }) # Loading data df = pd.read_csv('data.csv', parse_dates=['date'], index_col='id') df = pd.read_excel('data.xlsx', sheet_name='Sheet1') df = pd.read_json('data.json') df = pd.read_sql('SELECT * FROM table', connection) # Data selection df['name'] # Single column as Series df[['name', 'salary']] # Multiple columns df.loc['row1':'row5', 'name':'salary'] # Label-based df.iloc[0:5, 0:3] # Integer-based # Filtering df[df['age'] > 30] df[(df['age'] > 30) & (df['department'] == 'Engineering')] df[df['name'].str.contains('Alice|Bob')] # Data cleaning df.isnull().sum() # Missing values df.dropna(thresh=len(df.columns)-2) # Drop rows with too many NaN df.fillna({'age': df['age'].median()}) # Fill specific columns df.duplicated().sum() # Count duplicates df.drop_duplicates(subset=['name'], keep='first') # String operations df['name'].str.lower() df['email'].str.extract(r'@(.+)$') df['department'].str.replace('Engineering', 'Eng') # Type conversion df['age'] = df['age'].astype(int) df['salary'] = pd.to_numeric(df['salary'], errors='coerce') # Sorting df.sort_values('salary', ascending=False) df.sort_values(['department', 'salary'], ascending=[True, False]) df.sort_index() # Grouping and aggregation df.groupby('department').agg({ 'salary': ['mean', 'max', 'min'], 'age': 'mean' }) df.groupby('department')['salary'].transform('mean') # Pivot tables pd.pivot_table(df, values='salary', index='department', columns='year', aggfunc='mean') # Merging df1 = pd.DataFrame({'id': [1, 2, 3], 'name': ['A', 'B', 'C']}) df2 = pd.DataFrame({'id': [1, 2, 4], 'salary': [50000, 60000, 70000]}) merged = pd.merge(df1, df2, on='id', how='outer') # Concatenation pd.concat([df1, df2], ignore_index=True) pd.concat([df1, df2], axis=1) # Time series df.set_index('date', inplace=True) df.resample('M').mean() # Monthly aggregation df.rolling(window=7).mean() # 7-day rolling average df.expanding().sum() # Cumulative sum df.diff() # Difference between consecutive values # Statistical operations df.describe() df.corr() df.cov() df['salary'].value_counts() df['department'].nunique() # Apply functions def categorize_age(age): if age < 30: return 'Young' elif age < 50: return 'Middle' else: return 'Senior' df['age_category'] = df['age'].apply(categorize_age) df['salary_log'] = df['salary'].apply(np.log) # Exporting data df.to_csv('output.csv', index=False) df.to_excel('output.xlsx', sheet_name='Data') df.to_json('output.json', orient='records') ``` ## Best Practices 1. **Use vectorized operations**: Avoid loops; pandas operations are optimized for vectorized execution. 2. **Chain operations for readability**: Use method chaining with `assign()`, `pipe()`, and successive operations. 3. **Specify dtypes explicitly**: When loading data, specify column types to avoid inference overhead. 4. **Use appropriate index**: Set meaningful indices (dates, IDs) for efficient operations. 5. **Avoid chained indexing**: Use `.loc[]` and `.iloc[]` with tuple indices instead of `df[col][row]`. 6. **Memory optimization**: Use `category` dtype for low-cardinality strings, `downcast` for numeric types. 7. **Use appropriate file formats**: Parquet for speed and compression, CSV for interoperability. 8. **Handle SettingWithCopy warnings**: Understand pandas copy/view semantics and use `.copy()` when needed. ## Common Patterns ### Pattern 1: Exploratory Data Analysis Pipeline ```python def eda_pipeline(df): # Basic info info = { 'shape': df.shape, 'dtypes': df.dtypes, 'missing': df.isnull().sum(), 'describe': df.describe() } # Categorical analysis cat_cols = df.select_dtypes(include=['object']).columns cat_summary = {col: {'unique': df[col].nunique(), 'top': df[col].value_counts().head()} for col in cat_cols} # Numerical analysis num_cols = df.select_dtypes(include=[np.number]).columns num_summary = df[num_cols].corr() return info, cat_summary, num_summary ``` ### Pattern 2: Data Cleaning Pipeline ```python def clean_data(df): # Remove duplicates df = df.drop_duplicates() # Handle missing values numeric_cols = df.select_dtypes(include=[np.number]).columns categorical_cols = df.select_dtypes(include=['object']).columns df[numeric_cols] = df[numeric_cols].fillna(df[numeric_cols].median()) df[categorical_cols] = df[categorical_cols].fillna(df[categorical_cols].mode().iloc[0]) # Remove outliers (IQR method) for col in numeric_cols: Q1 = df[col].quantile(0.25) Q3 = df[col].quantile(0.75) IQR = Q3 - Q1 df = df[(df[col] >= Q1 - 1.5*IQR) & (df[col] <= Q3 + 1.5*IQR)] # Standardize text for col in categorical_cols: df[col] = df[col].str.strip().str.lower() return df ``` ### Pattern 3: Feature Engineering from Raw Data ```python def engineer_features(df): # Create features df = df.assign( age_group=lambda x: pd.cut(x['age'], bins=[0, 25, 35, 50, 100], labels=['young', 'adult', 'middle', 'senior']), salary_per_year_exp=lambda x: x['salary'] / (x['years_exp'] + 1), is_senior=lambda x: (x['age'] > 40).astype(int) ) # One-hot encoding df = pd.get_dummies(df, columns=['department', 'gender'], drop_first=True) # Interaction features df['exp_salary_product'] = df['years_exp'] * df['salary'] return df ```