In this chapter, we will go through the core data analysis skills of using filesystems and formats. We will explore different file formats for text data using the Python OS and string libraries to manipulate textual and numerical data from source files, such as Comma-Separated Values (CSV),Extensible Markup Language(XML), andJavaScript Object Notation (JSON). You will learn what a pandas DataFrame is and how to create DataFrames from file sources for data analysis.
We will cover the following topics in this chapter:
- Techniques for manipulating tabular data
- Understanding pandas and DataFrames
- Handling essential data formats
- Data dictionaries and data types
- Creating your first DataFrame
