ENH: col descriptions that'd save in df schemas, helping users avoid creating separate documentation?

[chrisjdixon]

Asked at SO: I need to share well described data and want to do this in a modern way that avoids managing bureaucratic documentation no one will read. Fields require some description or note (eg. "values don't include ABC because XYZ") which I'd like to associate to columns that'll be saved with pd.to_<whatever>().

Looks like JSON supports annotations and I'd love to have the option of using them with pandas, but couldn't figure out how to.

Could we please develop functionality to add descriptions in a convenient way (eg. df[col].description = 'string') and have that save in output schemas? And maybe have that be selectable and show with df.info(verbose=True) or similar?

I know documentation is boring but maintaining bureaucratic paperwork is even worse. Also, data documentation is a requirement common to big orgs and schools / unis, and I reckon providing innovative functionality to make boring tasks more enjoyable is an efficient way of getting more people to stop using excel use pandas and newer technology in general, making the world a better place.

Unfortunately I don't understand pandas enough to see how this might be a stupid idea. Is this possible?

[attack68]

I suspect that this will not gain much traction (I could be wrong) for the following reasons:

a) pd.to_() is too broad. Most outputs require a rigid format with no room for descriptions. For others it may be possible to add them in but it might be ambiguous or subjective on how to do it. You are better off just picking a format (e.g. JSON) and making a concrete suggestion.

b) There are a few details missing like how "descriptions" would interact with levels of a multiindex, or would the description be applicable only to a single column, i.e. df[('usa', 'texas', 'rain')].description = "float in mm / month".

c) I can think of many ways of getting round this problem without resorting to a adding meta data to a pandas dataframe and requiring adjusting the output formats. What about just creating a second dataframe with the same columns but the content can be your description strings and then delivering two dataframe (one for content, one for meta info). In python you could also very easily take those two DataFrames create a JSON from the first and then using the json library augment the JSON to include the material from the second dataframe.

[lithomas1]

We already have metadata in the form of .attrs. Support for this is currently experimental though, and I don't think a lot of the I/O functions support reading/writing this.

[rhshadrach]

pandas DataFrames live in memory and can be loaded from various forms of data on disk. It seems to me that documentation should live on disk, it's not clear what having documentation in memory provides.

[chrisjdixon]

@lithomas1 Awesome! Could we use .attrs in this way, or could .attrs be expanded to allow for this? I'm not working with experimental releases and don't know what to make of .attrs documentation.

pd.to_() is too broad

Agreed. I'm indifferent with the format but pd.to_json() might be a good place to start. I also hadn't considered descriptions and multi indexes, but I guess this might be a limitation. Not looking for a silver bullet. I suppose they could be inherited as appropriate?

without resorting to a adding meta data to a pandas dataframe and requiring adjusting the output formats

Your suggestions are great but at least in my case sharing files which require custom instructions on how to open them aren't appropriate, and for others solutions requiring custom code would impede usage. Also, typical data analysts and people who set technology policies barely know what pandas is and it'd be nice to be accommodative and welcoming to beginners.

documentation should live on disk

I'm no expert but I'd imagine the cost of keeping a collection of strings in memory to be negligible and don't know of a requirement to keep on disk. Having aspects of descriptions change programmatically (eg. renaming a col) seems desirable as this relieves users of updating such changes themselves. Happy to be corrected.

[lithomas1]

@chrisjdixon You can attach metadata with df.attrs["whatever"]="something" for example, I think, and I believe this also works for series. Its experimental because there are still some issues to be worked out with metadata not propogating, and other things.

cc @TomAugspurger

[TomAugspurger]

This seems like a fine use case for attrs.

There's work on propagating the metadata through operations, and in reading / writing them for the various backends.

[chrisjdixon]

Where to from here? Would attrs and pd.to_json() be a good place to start?

Is there anything I (beginner) can do to help to progress this?