Software tools needed: web browser and Python programming environment with the Pandas package installed.
See Lab 1 for details on using Python, Gradescope, and Blackboard.
To make reading files easier, we will use the Pandas library that lets you read in structured data files very efficiently. Pandas, Python Data Analysis Library, is an elegant, open-source package for extracting, manipulating, and analyzing data, especially those stored in 2D arrays (like spreadsheets). It incorporates most of the Python constructs and libraries that we have seen thus far.
(Pandas is installed on all the lab machines. If you are using your own machine, see the directions at the end of Lab 1 for installing packages for Python.)
In Pandas, the basic structure is a DataFrame which stored data in rectangular grids. Let's use this to visualize the change in New York City's population. First, start your file with an import statements for pyplot and pandas:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt import pandas as pdWe used matplotlib in the Lab 3 and Lab 4 for plotting. The as plt allows us to use the plotting commands without having to write matplotlib.pyplot everytime, instead we just write plt. Similarly, The as pd allows us to use pandas commands without writing out pandas everytime-- we just write pd.
Next, save the NYC historical population data to the same directory as your program. This is a "comma separated values" file-- which is a plain text file containing spreadsheet data, with commas separating the different columns (thus, the name). Here's the first 10 lines of the file:
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_New_York_City,,,,,, * All population figures are consistent with present-day boundaries.,,,,,, First census after the consolidation of the five boroughs,,,,,, ,,,,,, ,,,,,, Year,Manhattan,Brooklyn,Queens,Bronx,Staten Island,Total 1698,4937,2017,,,727,7681 1771,21863,3623,,,2847,28423 1790,33131,4549,6159,1781,3827,49447 1800,60515,5740,6642,1755,4563,79215Note that it has 5 extra lines at the top before the column names occur. The pandas function for reading in CSV files is read_csv(). It has an option to skip rows which we will use here:
pop = pd.read_csv('nycHistPop.csv',skiprows=5)
Before going on, let's print out the variable pop. It is a dataframe, described in the reading above:
print(pop)The last line of our first pandas program is:
pop.plot(x="Year")which makes a graphical display of all of the data series in the variable pop with the series corresponding to the column "Year" as the x-axis. Your output should look something like:
To recap: our program is:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt import pandas as pd pop = pd.read_csv('nycHistPop.csv',skiprows=5) pop.plot(x="Year") plt.show()which did the following:
print("The largest number living in the Bronx is", pop["Bronx"].max())Similarly the average (mean) population for Queens can be computed:
print("The average number living in the Queens is", pop["Queens"].mean())
Each column in the original spreadsheet is a column, or series. We can look at the column for the Bronx with:
print(pop['Bronx'])How would you look at the one for Brooklyn?
A nice thing about series is that you can do basic arithmetic with them. For example,
print(pop['Bronx']*2)prints out double the values in the column.
You can also use multiple columns in a calculation:
print(pop['Bronx']/pop['Total'])prints out the fraction of the total population that lives in the Bronx.
We can save that series by creating a new column for it:
pop['Fraction'] = pop['Bronx']/pop['Total']and then can use it to create a new graph:
pop.plot(x = 'Year', y = 'Fraction')We can save it to a file, by storing the current figure (via "get current figure" or gcf() function and then saving it:
fig = plt.gcf() fig.savefig('fractionBX.png')shown in the following plot:
Putting this altogether, we have a program:
#Libraries for plotting and data processing: import matplotlib.pyplot as plt import pandas as pd #Open the CSV file and store in pop pop = pd.read_csv('nycHistPop.csv',skiprows=5) #Compute the fraction of the population in the Bronx, and save as new column: pop['Fraction'] = pop['Bronx']/pop['Total'] #Create a plot of year versus fraction of pop. in Bronx (with labels): pop.plot(x = 'Year', y = 'Fraction') #Save to the file: fractionBX.png fig = plt.gcf() fig.savefig('fractionBX.png')
How can you modify the program to let the user specify the borough to compute the fraction of the population?
Sometimes you have recurring values in a column and you want to examine the data for a particular value. For example, given the dataset containing weather observation in Australia, find the average rainfall at each location.
You may download the dataset to test this program locally.
The pandas function groupby() does exactly that: groups the rows by values in a given column and then aggregates the corresponding values for the other columns via some specified function (e.g. min, max, avg, ..)
Thus, to find the average rainfall at each location, we want to group 'Location', look at 'Rainfall' and take the average:
#Import libraries. import pandas as pd #Read in the csv file. rain = pd.read_csv('AustraliaRain.csv') #Group the data by location groupedData = rain.groupby('Location') #Print the average rainfall print(groupedData['Rainfall'].mean())
This will print a list of average rainfall measurements at each location:
Note: you could achieve the above in a single line as follows (it is equivalent to the above)
... #Group the data by location and print the average rainfall at each location. print(rain.groupby('Location')['Rainfall'].mean())
Finally, to retrieve the data for a particular location, for example "Albury", we can use groupby() along with get_group().
#Group the data by location but look specifically at group 'Albury' (one of the repeated values in the 'Location' column). albury = rain.groupby('Location').get_group('Albury') #Print the average rainfall for Albury. print(albury['Rainfall'].mean())
This will output a single number: the average rainfall in 'Albury'
Illustrate with student_info.csv, which stores information for students. Columns (attributes to describe a student) are Name, Age, Gender, Grade Level (freshmen, sophomore, junior, and senior), and Score.
students = pd.read_csv('student_info.csv')
groupedData = students.groupby('Grade Level')
print(groupedData['Score'].mean())
#pick up the group of senior students seniorStudents = groupedData.get_group('Senior') #find out the maximum score of senior students max = seniorStudents['Score'].max()
You can write programs in the Unix shell scripting language. Often called scripts, they are typically used for tying together input and output from different programs.
Let's look at a sample script (from elf lord's tutorials on linux):
#!/bin/bash echo "hello, $USER. I wish to list some files of yours" echo "listing files in the current directory, $PWD" ls # list filesLooking at this script line-by-line:
#!/bin/bash
It's standard to include as the first line of your scripts that specifies the program that's running (this is often called the "shebang" line). There's different variants of shell scripts. We're using the default for Ubuntu (the type of Unix running on the lab laptops) called bash, so, we start our script by specifying that we want to use the bash shell to evaluate it.
echo "hello, $USER. I wish to list some files of yours" echo "listing files in the current directory, $PWD"
$USER is a built-in variable that store the name of the current user. Similarly, the built-in variable, $PWD, stores the current directory (folder) that you are in.
ls # list files
In the shell, the different types of quotes have similar, but different, meanings. We'll use the double quotes since strings in double quotes will have special characters (like \n for newline) interpreted as in Python and C++.
This is how you run bash commands in Mac.
The default interactive shell is now zsh. To update your account to use zsh, please run `chsh -s /bin/zsh`. For more details, please visit https://support.apple.com/kb/HT208050.You now can enter bash commands as follows. Note that bash-3.2$ is the prompt, you type in command with return key, and you will get feedback after commands. For example, after bash prompt, enter
echo "hello, $USER. I wish to list some files of yours"Since my user name is laptopuser, the feedback is
hello, laptopuser. I wish to list some files of yoursWhen you finish running bash commands, enter exit with return key. The following is a complete example of running bash.
bash-3.2$ echo "hello, $USER. I wish to list some files of yours" hello, laptopuser. I wish to list some files of yours bash-3.2$ echo "listing files in the current directory, $PWD" listing files in the current directory, /Users/laptopuser/Downloads bash-3.2$ exit exit
To run bash scripts, which may have several bash commands, you need to edit a bash script file in plain text editor like notepad or gEdit. Save the file. Then make this file runnable by using chmod +x script_file_name, then run script_file_name in command line. See more details in the following example.
Use any text editor that will allow you to save a file with any or no extension such as gEdit (included with some Linux distributions), textEdit (included with MacOS) or notepad (included with Windows) to modify the above script to say "Hello, World". Note that we're leaving off the "!" since it is a bit confusing to print due to its special meaning in the shell (it lists the history, or previous commands, you have typed; for example: !! gives all commands in the history, !cd will repeat the most recent command you gave that starts with cd). Include in the second and third lines your name and email for the grading scripts (the first line should be the #!/bin/bash. Save your file as helloScript
Next, we'll change the permissions on the file, so that we can run it directly, by just typing its name. In the terminal, move to the directory where you saved your script and type:
$ chmod +x helloScript(changes the "mode" of the file helloScript to be executable-- if you name it something else, replace the name in chmod command above).
$ ./helloScript
Make sure to include a comment on the second line with your name (the first line has the #! line). Comments in shell are, like Python, preceded by a #.
Sample programs are available at the class repository (repo):
https://github.com/HunterCSci127/CSci127