pyjanitor
October 24, 2021 · View on GitHub
pyjanitor is a Python implementation of the R package janitor.
It provides a clean user-friendly API for extending pandas
with powerful and readable data-cleaning functions.
Quick start
- Installation:
conda install -c conda-forge pyjanitor. Read more installation instructions. - Check out the collection of general functions.
Why janitor?
Originally a port of the R package,
pyjanitor has evolved from a set of convenient data cleaning routines
into an experiment with the method chaining paradigm.
Data preprocessing usually consists of a series of steps that involve transforming raw data into an understandable/usable format. These series of steps need to be run in a certain sequence to achieve success. We take a base data file as the starting point, and perform actions on it, such as removing null/empty rows, replacing them with other values, adding/renaming/removing columns of data, filtering rows and others. More formally, these steps along with their relationships and dependencies are commonly referred to as a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG).
The pandas API has been invaluable for the Python data science ecosystem,
and implements method chaining of a subset of methods as part of the API.
For example, resetting indexes (.reset_index()),
dropping null values (.dropna()), and more,
are accomplished via the appropriate pd.DataFrame method calls.
Inspired by the ease-of-use
and expressiveness of the dplyr package
of the R statistical language ecosystem,
we have evolved pyjanitor into a language
for expressing the data processing DAG for pandas users.
To accomplish this, actions for which we would need to invoke imperative-style statements, can be replaced with method chains that allow one to read off the logical order of actions taken. Let us see the annotated example below. First off, here is the textual description of a data cleaning pathway:
- Create a
DataFrame. - Delete one column.
- Drop rows with empty values in two particular columns.
- Rename another two columns.
- Add a new column.
Let's import some libraries and begin with some sample data for this example:
# Libraries
import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
import janitor
# Sample Data curated for this example
company_sales = {
'SalesMonth': ['Jan', 'Feb', 'Mar', 'April'],
'Company1': [150.0, 200.0, 300.0, 400.0],
'Company2': [180.0, 250.0, np.nan, 500.0],
'Company3': [400.0, 500.0, 600.0, 675.0]
}
In pandas code, most users might type something like this:
# The Pandas Way
# 1. Create a pandas DataFrame from the company_sales dictionary
df = pd.DataFrame.from_dict(company_sales)
# 2. Delete a column from the DataFrame. Say 'Company1'
del df['Company1']
# 3. Drop rows that have empty values in columns 'Company2' and 'Company3'
df = df.dropna(subset=['Company2', 'Company3'])
# 4. Rename 'Company2' to 'Amazon' and 'Company3' to 'Facebook'
df = df.rename(
{
'Company2': 'Amazon',
'Company3': 'Facebook',
},
axis=1,
)
# 5. Let's add some data for another company. Say 'Google'
df['Google'] = [450.0, 550.0, 800.0]
# Output looks like this:
# Out[15]:
# SalesMonth Amazon Facebook Google
# 0 Jan 180.0 400.0 450.0
# 1 Feb 250.0 500.0 550.0
# 3 April 500.0 675.0 800.0
Slightly more advanced users might take advantage of the functional API:
df = (
pd.DataFrame(company_sales)
.drop(columns="Company1")
.dropna(subset=["Company2", "Company3"])
.rename(columns={"Company2": "Amazon", "Company3": "Facebook"})
.assign(Google=[450.0, 550.0, 800.0])
)
# The output is the same as before, and looks like this:
# Out[15]:
# SalesMonth Amazon Facebook Google
# 0 Jan 180.0 400.0 450.0
# 1 Feb 250.0 500.0 550.0
# 3 April 500.0 675.0 800.0
With pyjanitor, we enable method chaining with method names
that are explicitly named verbs, which describe the action taken.
df = (
pd.DataFrame.from_dict(company_sales)
.remove_columns(["Company1"])
.dropna(subset=["Company2", "Company3"])
.rename_column("Company2", "Amazon")
.rename_column("Company3", "Facebook")
.add_column("Google", [450.0, 550.0, 800.0])
)
# Output looks like this:
# Out[15]:
# SalesMonth Amazon Facebook Google
# 0 Jan 180.0 400.0 450.0
# 1 Feb 250.0 500.0 550.0
# 3 April 500.0 675.0 800.0
As such,
pyjanitor's etymology has a two-fold relationship to "cleanliness".
Firstly, it's about extending Pandas with convenient data cleaning routines.
Secondly, it's about providing a cleaner, method-chaining, verb-based API
for common pandas routines.
Installation
pyjanitor is currently installable from PyPI:
pip install pyjanitor
pyjanitor also can be installed by the conda package manager:
conda install pyjanitor -c conda-forge
pyjanitor can be installed by the pipenv environment manager too.
This requires enabling prerelease dependencies:
pipenv install --pre pyjanitor
pyjanitor requires Python 3.11+.
Functionality
Current functionality includes:
- Cleaning columns name (multi-indexes are possible!)
- Removing empty rows and columns
- Identifying duplicate entries
- Encoding columns as categorical
- Splitting your data into features and targets (for machine learning)
- Adding, removing, and renaming columns
- Coalesce multiple columns into a single column
- Date conversions (from matlab, excel, unix) to Python datetime format
- Expand a single column that has delimited, categorical values into dummy-encoded variables
- Concatenating and deconcatenating columns, based on a delimiter
- Syntactic sugar for filtering the dataframe based on queries on a column
- Experimental submodules for finance, biology, chemistry, engineering, and pyspark
API
The idea behind the API is two-fold:
- Copy the R package function names,
but enable Pythonic use with method chaining or
pandaspiping. - Add other utility functions
that make it easy to do data cleaning/preprocessing in
pandas.
Continuing with the company_sales dataframe previously used:
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
company_sales = {
'SalesMonth': ['Jan', 'Feb', 'Mar', 'April'],
'Company1': [150.0, 200.0, 300.0, 400.0],
'Company2': [180.0, 250.0, np.nan, 500.0],
'Company3': [400.0, 500.0, 600.0, 675.0]
}
As such, there are three ways to use the API.
The first, and most strongly recommended one, is to use pyjanitor's functions
as if they were native to pandas.
import janitor # upon import, functions are registered as part of pandas.
# This cleans the column names as well as removes any duplicate rows
df = pd.DataFrame.from_dict(company_sales).clean_names().remove_empty()
The second is the functional API.
from janitor import clean_names, remove_empty
df = pd.DataFrame.from_dict(company_sales)
df = clean_names(df)
df = remove_empty(df)
The final way is to use the pipe() method:
from janitor import clean_names, remove_empty
df = (
pd.DataFrame.from_dict(company_sales)
.pipe(clean_names)
.pipe(remove_empty)
)
Contributing
Follow the development guide for a full description
of the process of contributing to pyjanitor.
Adding new functionality
Keeping in mind the etymology of pyjanitor, contributing a new function to pyjanitor is a task that is not difficult at all.
Define a function
First off, you will need to define the function that expresses the data processing/cleaning routine, such that it accepts a dataframe as the first argument, and returns a modified dataframe:
import pandas_flavor as pf
@pf.register_dataframe_method
def my_data_cleaning_function(df, arg1, arg2, ...):
# Put data processing function here.
return df
We use pandas_flavor to register the function natively
on a pandas.DataFrame.
Add a test case
Secondly, we ask that you contribute a test case, to ensure that the function works as intended. Follow the contribution docs for further details.
Feature requests
If you have a feature request, please post it as an issue on the GitHub repository issue tracker. Even better, put in a PR for it! We are more than happy to guide you through the codebase so that you can put in a contribution to the codebase.
Because pyjanitor is currently maintained by volunteers
and has no fiscal support,
any feature requests will be prioritized according to
what maintainers encounter as a need in our day-to-day jobs.
Please temper expectations accordingly.
API Policy
pyjanitor only extends or aliases the pandas API
(and other dataframe APIs),
but will never fix or replace them.
Undesirable pandas behaviour should be reported upstream
in the pandas issue tracker.
We explicitly do not fix the pandas API.
If at some point the pandas devs
decide to take something from pyjanitor
and internalize it as part of the official pandas API,
then we will deprecate it from pyjanitor,
while acknowledging the original contributors' contribution
as part of the official deprecation record.
Contributors
Thanks goes to these wonderful people who have contributed to pyjanitor:
This project follows the all-contributors specification. Contributions of any kind welcome!
Credits
As of 11/05/2025, the test data for the chemistry submodule is unavailable.