How can I load data from mongodb collection into pandas' DataFrame?

Question

I am new to pandas (well, to all things "programming"...), but have been encouraged to give it a try. I have a mongodb database - "test" - with a collection called "tweets". I access the database in ipython:

import sys
import pymongo
from pymongo import Connection
connection = Connection()
db = connection.test
tweets = db.tweets

the document structure of documents in tweets is as follows:

entities': {u'hashtags': [],
  u'symbols': [],
  u'urls': [],
  u'user_mentions': []},
 u'favorite_count': 0,
 u'favorited': False,
 u'filter_level': u'medium',
 u'geo': {u'coordinates': [placeholder coordinate, -placeholder coordinate], u'type': u'Point'},
 u'id': 349223842700472320L,
 u'id_str': u'349223842700472320',
 u'in_reply_to_screen_name': None,
 u'in_reply_to_status_id': None,
 u'in_reply_to_status_id_str': None,
 u'in_reply_to_user_id': None,
 u'in_reply_to_user_id_str': None,
 u'lang': u'en',
 u'place': {u'attributes': {},
  u'bounding_box': {u'coordinates': [[[placeholder coordinate, placeholder coordinate],
     [-placeholder coordinate, placeholder coordinate],
     [-placeholder coordinate, placeholder coordinate],
     [-placeholder coordinate, placeholder coordinate]]],
   u'type': u'Polygon'},
  u'country': u'placeholder country',
  u'country_code': u'example',
  u'full_name': u'name, xx',
  u'id': u'user id',
  u'name': u'name',
  u'place_type': u'city',
  u'url': u'http://api.twitter.com/1/geo/id/1820d77fb3f65055.json'},
 u'retweet_count': 0,
 u'retweeted': False,
 u'source': u'<a href="http://twitter.com/download/iphone" rel="nofollow">Twitter for iPhone</a>',
 u'text': u'example text',
 u'truncated': False,
 u'user': {u'contributors_enabled': False,
  u'created_at': u'Sat Jan 22 13:42:59 +0000 2011',
  u'default_profile': False,
  u'default_profile_image': False,
  u'description': u'example description',
  u'favourites_count': 100,
  u'follow_request_sent': None,
  u'followers_count': 100,
  u'following': None,
  u'friends_count': 100,
  u'geo_enabled': True,
  u'id': placeholder_id,
  u'id_str': u'placeholder_id',
  u'is_translator': False,
  u'lang': u'en',
  u'listed_count': 0,
  u'location': u'example place',
  u'name': u'example name',
  u'notifications': None,
  u'profile_background_color': u'000000',
  u'profile_background_image_url': u'http://a0.twimg.com/images/themes/theme19/bg.gif',
  u'profile_background_image_url_https': u'https://si0.twimg.com/images/themes/theme19/bg.gif',
  u'profile_background_tile': False,
  u'profile_banner_url': u'https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_banners/241527685/1363314054',
  u'profile_image_url':       u'http://a0.twimg.com/profile_images/378800000038841219/8a71d0776da0c48dcc4ef6fee9f78880_normal.jpeg',
  u'profile_image_url_https':     u'https://si0.twimg.com/profile_images/378800000038841219/8a71d0776da0c48dcc4ef6fee9f78880_normal.jpeg', 
  u'profile_link_color': u'000000',
  u'profile_sidebar_border_color': u'FFFFFF',
  u'profile_sidebar_fill_color': u'000000',
  u'profile_text_color': u'000000',
  u'profile_use_background_image': False,
  u'protected': False,
  u'screen_name': placeholder screen_name',
  u'statuses_count': xxxx,
  u'time_zone': u'placeholder time_zone',
  u'url': None,
  u'utc_offset': -21600,
  u'verified': False}}

Now, as far as I understand, pandas' main data structure - a spreadsheet-like table - is called DataFrame. How can I load the data from my "tweets" collection into pandas' DataFrame? And how can I query for a subdocument within the database?

Answer 1

Comprehend the cursor you got from the MongoDB before passing it to DataFrame

import pandas as pd
df = pd.DataFrame(list(tweets.find()))