How can I manage units in pandas data?

Question

I'm trying to figure out if there is a good way to manage units in my pandas data. For example, I have a DataFrame that looks like this:

   length (m)  width (m)  thickness (cm)
0         1.2        3.4             5.6
1         7.8        9.0             1.2
2         3.4        5.6             7.8

Currently, the measurement units are encoded in column names. Downsides include:

1. column selection is awkward -- df['width (m)'] vs. df['width']
2. things will likely break if the units of my source data change

If I wanted to strip the units out of the column names, is there somewhere else that the information could be stored?

Answer 1

There isn't any great way to do this right now, see github issue here for some discussion.

As a quick hack, could do something like this, maintaining a separate dict with the units.

In [3]: units = {}

In [5]: newcols = []
   ...: for col in df:
   ...:     name, unit = col.split(' ')
   ...:     units[name] = unit
   ...:     newcols.append(name)

In [6]: df.columns = newcols

In [7]: df
Out[7]:
   length  width  thickness
0     1.2    3.4        5.6
1     7.8    9.0        1.2
2     3.4    5.6        7.8

In [8]: units['length']
Out[8]: '(m)'