Parquet

Loading or writing Parquet files is lightning fast as the layout of data in a Polars DataFrame in memory mirrors the layout of a Parquet file on disk in many respects.

Unlike CSV, Parquet is a columnar format. This means that the data is stored in columns rather than rows. This is a more efficient way of storing data as it allows for better compression and faster access to data.

Read

We can read a Parquet file into a DataFrame using the read_parquet function:

Python Rust

read_parquet

df = pl.read_parquet("docs/data/path.parquet")

ParquetReader · Available on feature parquet

let mut file = std::fs::File::open("docs/data/path.parquet").unwrap();

let df = ParquetReader::new(&mut file).finish().unwrap();

Write

Python Rust

write_parquet

df = pl.DataFrame({"foo": [1, 2, 3], "bar": [None, "bak", "baz"]})
df.write_parquet("docs/data/path.parquet")

ParquetWriter · Available on feature parquet

let mut df = df!(
    "foo" => &[1, 2, 3],
    "bar" => &[None, Some("bak"), Some("baz")],
)
.unwrap();

let mut file = std::fs::File::create("docs/data/path.parquet").unwrap();
ParquetWriter::new(&mut file).finish(&mut df).unwrap();

Scan

Polars allows you to scan a Parquet input. Scanning delays the actual parsing of the file and instead returns a lazy computation holder called a LazyFrame.

Python Rust

scan_parquet

df = pl.scan_parquet("docs/data/path.parquet")

scan_parquet · Available on feature parquet

let args = ScanArgsParquet::default();
let lf = LazyFrame::scan_parquet("./file.parquet", args).unwrap();

If you want to know why this is desirable, you can read more about those Polars optimizations here.

When we scan a Parquet file stored in the cloud, we can also apply predicate and projection pushdowns. This can significantly reduce the amount of data that needs to be downloaded. For scanning a Parquet file in the cloud, see Cloud storage.