Engee documentation

Data manipulation frameworks

Three frameworks provide convenience methods to manipulate DataFrames: DataFramesMeta.jl, DataFrameMacros.jl and Query.jl. They implement a functionality similar to dplyr or LINQ.

DataFramesMeta.jl

The DataFramesMeta.jl package provides a convenient yet fast macro-based interface to work with DataFrames. The instructions below are for version 0.10.0 of DataFramesMeta.jl.

First install the DataFramesMeta.jl package:

using Pkg
Pkg.add("DataFramesMeta")

The major benefit of the package is it provides a more convenient syntax for the transformation functions transform, select, and combine via the macros @transform, @select, @combine, and more.

DataFramesMeta.jl also reexports the @chain macro from Chain.jl, allowing users to pipe the output of one transformation as an input to another, as with |> and %>% in R.

Below we present several selected examples of usage of the package.

First we subset rows of the source data frame using a logical condition and select its two columns, renaming one of them:

julia> using DataFramesMeta

julia> df = DataFrame(name=["John", "Sally", "Roger"],
                      age=[54.0, 34.0, 79.0],
                      children=[0, 2, 4])
3×3 DataFrame
 Row │ name    age      children
     │ String  Float64  Int64
─────┼───────────────────────────
   1 │ John       54.0         0
   2 │ Sally      34.0         2
   3 │ Roger      79.0         4

julia> @chain df begin
           @rsubset :age > 40
           @select(:number_of_children = :children, :name)
       end
2×2 DataFrame
 Row │ number_of_children  name
     │ Int64               String
─────┼────────────────────────────
   1 │                  0  John
   2 │                  4  Roger

In the following examples we show that DataFramesMeta.jl also supports the split-apply-combine pattern:

julia> df = DataFrame(key=repeat(1:3, 4), value=1:12)
12×2 DataFrame
 Row │ key    value
     │ Int64  Int64
─────┼──────────────
   1 │     1      1
   2 │     2      2
   3 │     3      3
   4 │     1      4
   5 │     2      5
   6 │     3      6
   7 │     1      7
   8 │     2      8
   9 │     3      9
  10 │     1     10
  11 │     2     11
  12 │     3     12

julia> @chain df begin
           @rsubset :value > 3
           @by(:key, :min = minimum(:value), :max = maximum(:value))
           @select(:key, :range = :max - :min)
        end
3×2 DataFrame
 Row │ key    range
     │ Int64  Int64
─────┼──────────────
   1 │     1      6
   2 │     2      6
   3 │     3      6

julia> @chain df begin
           groupby(:key)
           @transform :value0 = :value .- minimum(:value)
       end
12×3 DataFrame
 Row │ key    value  value0
     │ Int64  Int64  Int64
─────┼──────────────────────
   1 │     1      1       0
   2 │     2      2       0
   3 │     3      3       0
   4 │     1      4       3
   5 │     2      5       3
   6 │     3      6       3
   7 │     1      7       6
   8 │     2      8       6
   9 │     3      9       6
  10 │     1     10       9
  11 │     2     11       9
  12 │     3     12       9

You can find more details about how this package can be used on the DataFramesMeta.jl GitHub page.

DataFrameMacros.jl

DataFrameMacros.jl is an alternative to DataFramesMeta.jl with an additional focus on convenient solutions for the transformation of multiple columns at once. The instructions below are for version 0.3 of DataFrameMacros.jl.

First, install the DataFrameMacros.jl package:

using Pkg
Pkg.add("DataFrameMacros")

In DataFrameMacros.jl, all but the @combine macro are row-wise by default. There is also a @groupby which allows creating grouping columns on the fly using the same syntax as @transform, for grouping by new columns without writing them out twice.

In the example below, you can also see some of DataFrameMacros.jl’s multi-column features, where mean is applied to both age columns at once by selecting them with the r"age" regex. The new column names are then derived using the "{}" shortcut which splices the transformed column names into a string.

julia> using DataFrames, DataFrameMacros, Chain, Statistics

julia> df = DataFrame(name=["John", "Sally", "Roger"],
                      age=[54.0, 34.0, 79.0],
                      children=[0, 2, 4])
3×3 DataFrame
 Row │ name    age      children
     │ String  Float64  Int64
─────┼───────────────────────────
   1 │ John       54.0         0
   2 │ Sally      34.0         2
   3 │ Roger      79.0         4

julia> @chain df begin
           @transform :age_months = :age * 12
           @groupby :has_child = :children > 0
           @combine "mean_{}" = mean({r"age"})
       end
2×3 DataFrame
 Row │ has_child  mean_age  mean_age_months
     │ Bool       Float64   Float64
─────┼──────────────────────────────────────
   1 │     false      54.0            648.0
   2 │      true      56.5            678.0

There’s also the capability to reference a group of multiple columns as a single unit, for example to run aggregations over them, with the {{ }} syntax. In the following example, the first quarter is compared to the maximum of the other three:

julia> df = DataFrame(q1 = [12.0, 0.4, 42.7],
                      q2 = [6.4, 2.3, 40.9],
                      q3 = [9.5, 0.2, 13.6],
                      q4 = [6.3, 5.4, 39.3])
3×4 DataFrame
 Row │ q1       q2       q3       q4
     │ Float64  Float64  Float64  Float64
─────┼────────────────────────────────────
   1 │    12.0      6.4      9.5      6.3
   2 │     0.4      2.3      0.2      5.4
   3 │    42.7     40.9     13.6     39.3

julia> @transform df :q1_best = :q1 > maximum({{Not(:q1)}})
3×5 DataFrame
 Row │ q1       q2       q3       q4       q1_best
     │ Float64  Float64  Float64  Float64  Bool
─────┼─────────────────────────────────────────────
   1 │    12.0      6.4      9.5      6.3     true
   2 │     0.4      2.3      0.2      5.4    false
   3 │    42.7     40.9     13.6     39.3     true

Query.jl

The Query.jl package provides advanced data manipulation capabilities for DataFrames (and many other data structures). This section provides a short introduction to the package, the Query.jl documentation has a more comprehensive documentation of the package. The instructions here are for version 1.0.0 of Query.jl.

To get started, install the Query.jl package:

using Pkg
Pkg.add("Query")

A query is started with the @from macro and consists of a series of query commands. Query.jl provides commands that can filter, project, join, flatten and group data from a DataFrame. A query can return an iterator, or one can materialize the results of a query into a variety of data structures, including a new DataFrame.

A simple example of a query looks like this:

julia> using DataFrames, Query

julia> df = DataFrame(name=["John", "Sally", "Roger"],
                      age=[54.0, 34.0, 79.0],
                      children=[0, 2, 4])
3×3 DataFrame
 Row │ name    age      children
     │ String  Float64  Int64
─────┼───────────────────────────
   1 │ John       54.0         0
   2 │ Sally      34.0         2
   3 │ Roger      79.0         4

julia> q1 = @from i in df begin
            @where i.age > 40
            @select {number_of_children=i.children, i.name}
            @collect DataFrame
       end
2×2 DataFrame
 Row │ number_of_children  name
     │ Int64               String
─────┼────────────────────────────
   1 │                  0  John
   2 │                  4  Roger

The query starts with the @from macro. The first argument i is the name of the range variable that will be used to refer to an individual row in later query commands. The next argument df is the data source that one wants to query. The @where command in this query will filter the source data by applying the filter condition i.age > 40. This filters out any rows in which the age column is not larger than 40. The @select command then projects the columns of the source data onto a new column structure. The example here applies three specific modifications: 1) it only keeps a subset of the columns in the source DataFrame, i.e. the age column will not be part of the transformed data; 2) it changes the order of the two columns that are selected; and 3) it renames one of the columns that is selected from children to number_of_children. The example query uses the {} syntax to achieve this. A {} in a Query.jl expression instantiates a new NamedTuple, i.e. it is a shortcut for writing @NT(number_of_children=>i.children, name=>i.name). The @collect statement determines the data structure that the query returns. In this example the results are returned as a DataFrame.

A query without a @collect statement returns a standard julia iterator that can be used with any normal julia language construct that can deal with iterators. The following code returns a julia iterator for the query results:

julia> q2 = @from i in df begin
                   @where i.age > 40
                   @select {number_of_children=i.children, i.name}
              end; # suppress printing the iterator type

One can loop over the results using a standard julia for statement:

julia> total_children = 0
0

julia> for i in q2
           global total_children += i.number_of_children
       end

julia> total_children
4

Or one can use a comprehension to extract the name of a subset of rows:

julia> y = [i.name for i in q2 if i.number_of_children > 0]
1-element Vector{String}:
 "Roger"

The last example (extracting only the name and applying a second filter) could of course be completely expressed as a query expression:

julia> q3 = @from i in df begin
            @where i.age > 40 && i.children > 0
            @select i.name
            @collect
       end
1-element Vector{String}:
 "Roger"

A query that ends with a @collect statement without a specific type will materialize the query results into an array. Note also the difference in the @select statement: The previous queries all used the {} syntax in the @select statement to project results into a tabular format. The last query instead just selects a single value from each row in the @select statement.

These examples only scratch the surface of what one can do with Query.jl, and the interested reader is referred to the Query.jl documentation for more information.