How to quickly load some sample data (in Python)

Task

Sometimes you just need to try out a new piece of code, whether it be data manipulation, statistical computation, plotting, or whatever. And it’s handy to be able to quickly load some example data to work with. There is a lot of freely available sample data out there. What’s the easiest way to load it?

Solution

The R programming language comes with many free datasets built in. To make these same datasets available to Python programmers as well, you can install and import the rdatasets package.

First, ensure that you have it installed, by running pip install rdatasets or conda install rdatasets from your command line. Then you can get access to many datasets as follows:

from rdatasets import data
df = data( 'iris' )  # Load the famous Fisher's irises dataset
df.head()

	Sepal.Length	Sepal.Width	Petal.Length	Petal.Width	Species
0	5.1	3.5	1.4	0.2	setosa
1	4.9	3.0	1.4	0.2	setosa
2	4.7	3.2	1.3	0.2	setosa
3	4.6	3.1	1.5	0.2	setosa
4	5.0	3.6	1.4	0.2	setosa

But what datasets are available? There are many! You can find a full list in the package itself.

from rdatasets import summary
summary()

	Package	Item	Title	Rows	Cols	n_binary	n_character	n_factor	n_logical	n_numeric	CSV	Doc
0	boot	acme	Monthly Excess Returns	60	3	0	1	0	0	2	https://raw.github.com/vincentarelbundock/Rdat...	https://raw.github.com/vincentarelbundock/Rdat...
1	boot	aids	Delay in AIDS Reporting in England and Wales	570	6	1	0	0	0	6	https://raw.github.com/vincentarelbundock/Rdat...	https://raw.github.com/vincentarelbundock/Rdat...
2	boot	aircondit	Failures of Air-conditioning Equipment	12	1	0	0	0	0	1	https://raw.github.com/vincentarelbundock/Rdat...	https://raw.github.com/vincentarelbundock/Rdat...
3	boot	aircondit7	Failures of Air-conditioning Equipment	24	1	0	0	0	0	1	https://raw.github.com/vincentarelbundock/Rdat...	https://raw.github.com/vincentarelbundock/Rdat...
4	boot	amis	Car Speeding and Warning Signs	8437	4	1	0	0	0	4	https://raw.github.com/vincentarelbundock/Rdat...	https://raw.github.com/vincentarelbundock/Rdat...
...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...
1340	Zelig	tobin	Tobin's Tobit Data	20	3	0	0	0	0	3	https://raw.github.com/vincentarelbundock/Rdat...	https://raw.github.com/vincentarelbundock/Rdat...
1341	Zelig	turnout	Turnout Data Set from the National Election Su...	2000	5	2	0	1	0	4	https://raw.github.com/vincentarelbundock/Rdat...	https://raw.github.com/vincentarelbundock/Rdat...
1342	Zelig	voteincome	Sample Turnout and Demographic Data from the 2...	1500	7	3	0	1	0	6	https://raw.github.com/vincentarelbundock/Rdat...	https://raw.github.com/vincentarelbundock/Rdat...
1343	Zelig	Weimar	1932 Weimar election data	10	11	0	0	0	0	11	https://raw.github.com/vincentarelbundock/Rdat...	https://raw.github.com/vincentarelbundock/Rdat...
1344	Zelig	Zelig.url	Table of links for Zelig	49	2	0	0	2	0	0	https://raw.github.com/vincentarelbundock/Rdat...	https://raw.github.com/vincentarelbundock/Rdat...

1345 rows × 12 columns

Content last modified on 24 July 2023.

See a problem? Tell us or edit the source.

Contributed by Nathan Carter (ncarter@bentley.edu)