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Coming from Pandas

Here we set out the key points that anyone who has experience with Pandas and wants to try Polars should know. We include both differences in the concepts the libraries are built on and differences in how you should write Polars code compared to Pandas code.

Differences in concepts between Polars and Pandas

Polars does not have a multi-index/index

Pandas gives a label to each row with an index. Polars does not use an index and each row is indexed by its integer position in the table.

Polars aims to have predictable results and readable queries, as such we think an index does not help us reach that objective. We believe the semantics of a query should not change by the state of an index or a reset_index call.

In Polars a DataFrame will always be a 2D table with heterogeneous data-types. The data-types may have nesting, but the table itself will not. Operations like resampling will be done by specialized functions or methods that act like 'verbs' on a table explicitly stating the columns that that 'verb' operates on. As such, it is our conviction that not having indices make things simpler, more explicit, more readable and less error-prone.

Note that an 'index' data structure as known in databases will be used by polars as an optimization technique.

Polars uses Apache Arrow arrays to represent data in memory while Pandas uses Numpy arrays

Polars represents data in memory with Arrow arrays while Pandas represents data in memory with Numpy arrays. Apache Arrow is an emerging standard for in-memory columnar analytics that can accelerate data load times, reduce memory usage and accelerate calculations.

Polars can convert data to Numpy format with the to_numpy method.

Polars has more support for parallel operations than Pandas

Polars exploits the strong support for concurrency in Rust to run many operations in parallel. While some operations in Pandas are multi-threaded the core of the library is single-threaded and an additional library such as Dask must be used to parallelize operations.

Polars can lazily evaluate queries and apply query optimization

Eager evaluation is when code is evaluated as soon as you run the code. Lazy evaluation is when running a line of code means that the underlying logic is added to a query plan rather than being evaluated.

Polars supports eager evaluation and lazy evaluation whereas Pandas only supports eager evaluation. The lazy evaluation mode is powerful because Polars carries out automatic query optimization when it examines the query plan and looks for ways to accelerate the query or reduce memory usage.

Dask also supports lazy evaluation when it generates a query plan. However, Dask does not carry out query optimization on the query plan.

Key syntax differences

Users coming from Pandas generally need to know one thing...

polars != pandas

If your Polars code looks like it could be Pandas code, it might run, but it likely runs slower than it should.

Let's go through some typical Pandas code and see how we might rewrite it in Polars.

Selecting data

As there is no index in Polars there is no .loc or iloc method in Polars - and there is also no SettingWithCopyWarning in Polars.

However, the best way to select data in Polars is to use the expression API. For example, if you want to select a column in Pandas you can do one of the following:

df['a']
df.loc[:,'a']

but in Polars you would use the .select method:

df.select('a')

If you want to select rows based on the values then in Polars you use the .filter method:

df.filter(pl.col('a') < 10)

As noted in the section on expressions below, Polars can run operations in .select and filter in parallel and Polars can carry out query optimization on the full set of data selection criteria.

Be lazy

Working in lazy evaluation mode is straightforward and should be your default in Polars as the lazy mode allows Polars to do query optimization.

We can run in lazy mode by either using an implicitly lazy function (such as scan_csv) or explicitly using the lazy method.

Take the following simple example where we read a CSV file from disk and do a group by. The CSV file has numerous columns but we just want to do a group by on one of the id columns (id1) and then sum by a value column (v1). In Pandas this would be:

df = pd.read_csv(csv_file, usecols=['id1','v1'])
grouped_df = df.loc[:,['id1','v1']].groupby('id1').sum('v1')

In Polars you can build this query in lazy mode with query optimization and evaluate it by replacing the eager Pandas function read_csv with the implicitly lazy Polars function scan_csv:

df = pl.scan_csv(csv_file)
grouped_df = df.group_by('id1').agg(pl.col('v1').sum()).collect()

Polars optimizes this query by identifying that only the id1 and v1 columns are relevant and so will only read these columns from the CSV. By calling the .collect method at the end of the second line we instruct Polars to eagerly evaluate the query.

If you do want to run this query in eager mode you can just replace scan_csv with read_csv in the Polars code.

Read more about working with lazy evaluation in the lazy API section.

Express yourself

A typical Pandas script consists of multiple data transformations that are executed sequentially. However, in Polars these transformations can be executed in parallel using expressions.

Column assignment

We have a dataframe df with a column called value. We want to add two new columns, a column called tenXValue where the value column is multiplied by 10 and a column called hundredXValue where the value column is multiplied by 100.

In Pandas this would be:

df["tenXValue"] = df["value"] * 10
df["hundredXValue"] = df["value"] * 100

These column assignments are executed sequentially.

In Polars we add columns to df using the .with_columns method and name them with the .alias method:

df.with_columns(
    (pl.col("value") * 10).alias("tenXValue"),
    (pl.col("value") * 100).alias("hundredXValue"),
)

These column assignments are executed in parallel.

Column assignment based on predicate

In this case we have a dataframe df with columns a,b and c. We want to re-assign the values in column a based on a condition. When the value in column c is equal to 2 then we replace the value in a with the value in b.

In Pandas this would be:

df.loc[df["c"] == 2, "a"] = df.loc[df["c"] == 2, "b"]

while in Polars this would be:

df.with_columns(
    pl.when(pl.col("c") == 2)
    .then(pl.col("b"))
    .otherwise(pl.col("a")).alias("a")
)

The Polars way is pure in that the original DataFrame is not modified. The mask is also not computed twice as in Pandas (you could prevent this in Pandas, but that would require setting a temporary variable).

Additionally Polars can compute every branch of an if -> then -> otherwise in parallel. This is valuable, when the branches get more expensive to compute.

Filtering

We want to filter the dataframe df with housing data based on some criteria.

In Pandas you filter the dataframe by passing Boolean expressions to the loc method:

df.loc[(df['sqft_living'] > 2500) & (df['price'] < 300000)]

while in Polars you call the filter method:

df.filter(
    (pl.col("m2_living") > 2500) & (pl.col("price") < 300000)
)

The query optimizer in Polars can also detect if you write multiple filters separately and combine them into a single filter in the optimized plan.

Pandas transform

The Pandas documentation demonstrates an operation on a group by called transform. In this case we have a dataframe df and we want a new column showing the number of rows in each group.

In Pandas we have:

df = pd.DataFrame({
    "type": ["m", "n", "o", "m", "m", "n", "n"],
    "c": [1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2],
})

df["size"] = df.groupby("c")["type"].transform(len)

Here Pandas does a group by on "c", takes column "type", computes the group length and then joins the result back to the original DataFrame producing:

   c type size
0  1    m    3
1  1    n    3
2  1    o    3
3  2    m    4
4  2    m    4
5  2    n    4
6  2    n    4

In Polars the same can be achieved with window functions:

df.select(
    pl.all(),
    pl.col("type").count().over("c").alias("size")
)

shape: (7, 3)
┌─────┬──────┬──────┐
│ c   ┆ type ┆ size │
│ --- ┆ ---  ┆ ---  │
│ i64 ┆ str  ┆ u32  │
╞═════╪══════╪══════╡
│ 1   ┆ m    ┆ 3    │
├╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌┤
│ 1   ┆ n    ┆ 3    │
├╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌┤
│ 1   ┆ o    ┆ 3    │
├╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌┤
│ 2   ┆ m    ┆ 4    │
├╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌┤
│ 2   ┆ m    ┆ 4    │
├╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌┤
│ 2   ┆ n    ┆ 4    │
├╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌┤
│ 2   ┆ n    ┆ 4    │
└─────┴──────┴──────┘

Because we can store the whole operation in a single expression, we can combine several window functions and even combine different groups!

Polars will cache window expressions that are applied over the same group, so storing them in a single select is both convenient and optimal. In the following example we look at a case where we are calculating group statistics over "c" twice:

df.select(
    pl.all(),
    pl.col("c").count().over("c").alias("size"),
    pl.col("c").sum().over("type").alias("sum"),
    pl.col("c").reverse().over("c").flatten().alias("reverse_type")
)

shape: (7, 5)
┌─────┬──────┬──────┬─────┬──────────────┐
│ c   ┆ type ┆ size ┆ sum ┆ reverse_type │
│ --- ┆ ---  ┆ ---  ┆ --- ┆ ---          │
│ i64 ┆ str  ┆ u32  ┆ i64 ┆ i64          │
╞═════╪══════╪══════╪═════╪══════════════╡
│ 1   ┆ m    ┆ 3    ┆ 5   ┆ 2            │
├╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌┤
│ 1   ┆ n    ┆ 3    ┆ 5   ┆ 2            │
├╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌┤
│ 1   ┆ o    ┆ 3    ┆ 1   ┆ 2            │
├╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌┤
│ 2   ┆ m    ┆ 4    ┆ 5   ┆ 2            │
├╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌┤
│ 2   ┆ m    ┆ 4    ┆ 5   ┆ 1            │
├╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌┤
│ 2   ┆ n    ┆ 4    ┆ 5   ┆ 1            │
├╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌┤
│ 2   ┆ n    ┆ 4    ┆ 5   ┆ 1            │
└─────┴──────┴──────┴─────┴──────────────┘

Missing data

Pandas uses NaN and/or None values to indicate missing values depending on the dtype of the column. In addition the behaviour in Pandas varies depending on whether the default dtypes or optional nullable arrays are used. In Polars missing data corresponds to a null value for all data types.

For float columns Polars permits the use of NaN values. These NaN values are not considered to be missing data but instead a special floating point value.

In Pandas an integer column with missing values is cast to be a float column with NaN values for the missing values (unless using optional nullable integer dtypes). In Polars any missing values in an integer column are simply null values and the column remains an integer column.

See the missing data section for more details.