Search icon CANCEL
Subscription
0
Cart icon
Your Cart (0 item)
Close icon
You have no products in your basket yet
Arrow left icon
Explore Products
Best Sellers
New Releases
Books
Videos
Audiobooks
Learning Hub
Free Learning
Arrow right icon
Arrow up icon
GO TO TOP
Practical Data Wrangling

You're reading from   Practical Data Wrangling Expert techniques for transforming your raw data into a valuable source for analytics

Arrow left icon
Product type Paperback
Published in Nov 2017
Publisher Packt
ISBN-13 9781787286139
Length 204 pages
Edition 1st Edition
Languages
Tools
Arrow right icon
Author (1):
Arrow left icon
Allan Visochek Allan Visochek
Author Profile Icon Allan Visochek
Allan Visochek
Arrow right icon
View More author details
Toc

Table of Contents (10) Chapters Close

Preface 1. Programming with Data FREE CHAPTER 2. Introduction to Programming in Python 3. Reading, Exploring, and Modifying Data - Part I 4. Reading, Exploring, and Modifying Data - Part II 5. Manipulating Text Data - An Introduction to Regular Expressions 6. Cleaning Numerical Data - An Introduction to R and RStudio 7. Simplifying Data Manipulation with dplyr 8. Getting Data from the Web 9. Working with Large Datasets

Understanding computer memory


To make sense of why processing large files requires a new approach, I will briefly discuss computer memory and databases here. Feel free to skip ahead if you are familiar with how memory and databases work. 

In computer hardware, memory is the medium that stores data, programs, and files. The hardware for computer memory is split into primary storage, which generally takes the form of RAM (random access memory), and secondary storage, which generally takes the form of a hard drive. Primary storage is used for storing the machine code and the data of active programs, while secondary storage is used for storing all data and files not currently in use. This division in memory usage reflects a few differences in the hardware used for each.

The first difference is that RAM (used for primary storage) is cleared when the computer is shut down, while data stored on hard drives (used for secondary storage) persists. The second difference is that data stored on RAM is...

lock icon The rest of the chapter is locked
Register for a free Packt account to unlock a world of extra content!
A free Packt account unlocks extra newsletters, articles, discounted offers, and much more. Start advancing your knowledge today.
Unlock this book and the full library FREE for 7 days
Get unlimited access to 7000+ expert-authored eBooks and videos courses covering every tech area you can think of
Renews at $19.99/month. Cancel anytime
Banner background image