Pandas is the data analysis library for Python. The library was built specifically to help developers when working with data in structured formats like matrices, tables and time series data.
Pandas 1.0 has been released to remove the not-so-efficient working functionality from the previous version.
The brains behind Pandas 1.0 have introduced a number of significant changes in the library. Here we have listed some of the most important ones:
Requires Python 3.6.1 or higher
While earlier Pandas lent support to all versions of Python, with Pandas 1.0 – things have changed drastically. Pandas 1.0 only supports Python 3.6.1 for now. A new support policy has also been rolled out that states the library will support the higher versions of Python to.
The future versions of Pandas like 2.0, 3.0 will also have support for Python’s newer versions. While the minor releases will only show disappointment for features but not remove them, the major release will entirely remove them.
New NA Value
The previous versions of Pandas made use of different types to show missing data, which was dependent on the type of the container they were in. For instance, one for objects, another for datetime types etc.
But with Pandas 1.0, all of these types are being amalgamated into one missing-data type. This type is referred as NA in the documentation of Pandas 1.0. For now, only a few object types can support NA as it is still in experimentation phase.
Deplored Features
The documentation of Pandas explores in detail all of the features that will be deplored in Pandas 1.0. None of the features will be removed though. A few of the features have either been reorganized or renames, for instance the testing module. Some changes include modifying the usage of certain function parameters. In other cases, like Index.item () and Series.item(), the features have not been depreciated.
Creators of Pandas advise developers who are using earlier versions of Pandas (0.25 or earlier) to first migrate to 0.25 version so that their code behaves like its is expected. Once that is ensured, Pandas creators recommend you to migrate to Pandas 1.0.
Removed Features
Some of the features that have been wiped off from Pandas 1.0 are:
- Old features that were previously deprecated
- Matplotlib unit registration
- SparseSeries and SparseDataFrame
API Incompatibilities
As massive changes have been introduced to Pandas 1.0, a few Panda’s APIs have now become incompatible (backward). Most of these incompatibilities will result in warnings when you use the APIs. It is suggested that the current Pandas scripts are tested simultaneously with Pandas 1.0 counterparts to witness how it goes.
The API incompatibilities affects the behavior of a number of common elements, including:
- IntegerArray
- array
- The DataFrame type
About Pandas
Pandas is an open-source, library to ease developers in working with Python when they are using data structures and data analysis tools. It was initially released in 2008 by Wes McKinney.
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