11. Indexing and Selecting Data

Indexing and Selecting Data

The axis labeling information in pandas objects serves many purposes:

• Identifies data (i.e. provides metadata) using known indicators, important for analysis, visualization, and interactive console display
• Enables automatic and explicit data alignment
• Allows intuitive getting and setting of subsets of the data set

In this section, we will focus on the final point: namely, how to slice, dice, and generally get and set subsets of pandas objects. The primary focus will be on Series and DataFrame as they have received more development attention in this area. Expect more work to be invested in higher-dimensional data structures (including Panel) in the future, especially in label-based advanced indexing.