I can't figure out the difference between Pandas .aggregate
and .apply
functions.
Take the following as an example: I load a dataset, do a groupby
, define a simple function,
and either user .agg
or .apply
.
As you may see, the printing statement within my function results in the same output
after using .agg
and .apply
. The result, on the other hand is different. Why is that?
import pandas
import pandas as pd
iris = pd.read_csv('iris.csv')
by_species = iris.groupby('Species')
def f(x):
...: print type(x)
...: print x.head(3)
...: return 1
Using apply
:
by_species.apply(f)
#<class 'pandas.core.frame.DataFrame'>
# 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
#<class 'pandas.core.frame.DataFrame'>
# 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
#<class 'pandas.core.frame.DataFrame'>
# Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width Species
#50 7.0 3.2 4.7 1.4 versicolor
#51 6.4 3.2 4.5 1.5 versicolor
#52 6.9 3.1 4.9 1.5 versicolor
#<class 'pandas.core.frame.DataFrame'>
# Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width Species
#100 6.3 3.3 6.0 2.5 virginica
#101 5.8 2.7 5.1 1.9 virginica
#102 7.1 3.0 5.9 2.1 virginica
#Out[33]:
#Species
#setosa 1
#versicolor 1
#virginica 1
#dtype: int64
Using agg
by_species.agg(f)
#<class 'pandas.core.frame.DataFrame'>
# 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
#<class 'pandas.core.frame.DataFrame'>
# Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width Species
#50 7.0 3.2 4.7 1.4 versicolor
#51 6.4 3.2 4.5 1.5 versicolor
#52 6.9 3.1 4.9 1.5 versicolor
#<class 'pandas.core.frame.DataFrame'>
# Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width Species
#100 6.3 3.3 6.0 2.5 virginica
#101 5.8 2.7 5.1 1.9 virginica
#102 7.1 3.0 5.9 2.1 virginica
#Out[34]:
# Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width
#Species
#setosa 1 1 1 1
#versicolor 1 1 1 1
#virginica 1 1 1 1
apply
applies the function to each group (your Species
). Your function returns 1, so you end up with 1 value for each of 3 groups.
agg
aggregates each column (feature) for each group, so you end up with one value per column per group.
Do read the groupby
docs, they're quite helpful. There are also a bunch of tutorials floating around the web.