Pandas Series

A Pandas Series is a one‐dimensional NumPy‐like array, with each element having an index (0, 1, 2, … by default); a Series behaves very much like a dictionary that includes an index. Figure 3.1 shows the structure of a Series in Pandas.

Figure 3.1: A Pandas Series

To create a Series, you first need to import the pandas library (the convention is to use pd as the alias) and then use the Series class:

import pandas as pd
series = pd.Series([1,2,3,4,5])
print(series) 

The preceding code snippet will print the following output:

0    1
1    2
2    3
3    4
4    5
dtype: int64 

By default, the index of a Series starts from 0.

Creating a Series Using a Specified Index

You can specify an optional index for a Series using the index parameter:

series = pd.Series([1,2,3,4,5], index=['a','b','c','d','c'])
print(series) 

The preceding code snippet prints out the following:

a    1
b    2
c    3
d    4
c    5
dtype...