pandas on Snowflake¶
pandas on Snowflake lets you run your pandas code in a distributed manner directly on your data in Snowflake. Just by changing the import statement and a few lines of code, you can get the familiar pandas experience you know and love with the scalability and security benefits of Snowflake. With pandas on Snowflake, you can work with much larger datasets and avoid the time and expense of porting your pandas pipelines to other big data frameworks or provisioning large and expensive machines. It runs workloads natively in Snowflake through transpilation to SQL, enabling it to take advantage of parallelization and the data governance and security benefits of Snowflake. pandas on Snowflake is delivered through the Snowpark pandas API as part of the Snowpark Python library, which enables scalable data processing of Python code within the Snowflake platform.
Benefits of using pandas on Snowflake¶
Meeting Python developers where they are – pandas on Snowflake offers a familiar interface to Python developers by providing a pandas-compatible layer that can run natively in Snowflake.
Scalable distributed pandas – pandas on Snowflake bridges the convenience of pandas with the scalability of Snowflake by leveraging existing query optimization techniques in Snowflake. Minimal code rewrites are required, simplifying the migration journey, so you can seamlessly move from prototype to production.
Security and governance – Data does not leave Snowflake’s secure platform. pandas on Snowflake allows uniformity within data organizations on how data is accessed, and allows for easier auditing and governance.
No additional compute infrastructure to manage and tune – pandas on Snowflake leverages the Snowflake’s powerful compute engine, so you do not need to set up or manage any additional compute infrastructure.
When should I use pandas on Snowflake¶
You should use pandas on Snowflake if any of the following is true:
You are familiar with the pandas API and the broader PyData ecosystem
You work in a team with others who are familiar with pandas and want to collaborate on the same codebase
You have existing code written in pandas
Your workflow has order-related needs, as supported by pandas DataFrames. For example, you need the dataset to be in the same order for the entire workflow
You prefer more accurate code completion from AI-based copilot tools
Getting started with pandas on Snowflake¶
To install pandas on Snowflake, you can use conda or pip to install the package. For detailed instructions, see Installation.
pip install "snowflake-snowpark-python[modin]"
Once pandas on Snowflake is installed, instead of importing pandas as import pandas as pd
, use the following two lines:
import modin.pandas as pd
import snowflake.snowpark.modin.plugin
Here is an example of how you can start using pandas on Snowflake through the pandas on Snowpark Python library with Modin.
import modin.pandas as pd
# Import the Snowpark plugin for modin.
import snowflake.snowpark.modin.plugin
# Create a Snowpark session with a default connection.
from snowflake.snowpark.session import Session
session = Session.builder.create()
# Create a Snowpark pandas DataFrame from existing Snowflake table
df = pd.read_snowflake('SNOWFALL')
# Alternatively, create a Snowpark pandas DataFrame with sample data.
df = pd.DataFrame([[1, 'Big Bear', 8],[2, 'Big Bear', 10],[3, 'Big Bear', None],
[1, 'Tahoe', 3],[2, 'Tahoe', None],[3, 'Tahoe', 13],
[1, 'Whistler', None],['Friday', 'Whistler', 40],[3, 'Whistler', 25]],
columns=["DAY", "LOCATION", "SNOWFALL"])
# Inspect the DataFrame
df
DAY LOCATION SNOWFALL
0 1 Big Bear 8.0
1 2 Big Bear 10.0
2 3 Big Bear NaN
3 1 Tahoe 3.0
4 2 Tahoe NaN
5 3 Tahoe 13.0
6 1 Whistler NaN
7 Friday Whistler 40.0
8 3 Whistler 25.0
# In-place point update to fix data error.
df.loc[df["DAY"]=="Friday","DAY"]=2
# Inspect the columns after update.
# Note how the data type is updated automatically after transformation.
df["DAY"]
0 1
1 2
2 3
3 1
4 2
5 3
6 1
7 2
8 3
Name: DAY, dtype: int64
# Drop rows with null values.
df.dropna()
DAY LOCATION SNOWFALL
0 1 Big Bear 8.0
1 2 Big Bear 10.0
3 1 Tahoe 3.0
5 3 Tahoe 13.0
7 2 Whistler 40.0
8 3 Whistler 25.0
# Compute the average daily snowfall across locations.
df.groupby("LOCATION").mean()["SNOWFALL"]
LOCATION
Big Bear 9.0
Tahoe 8.0
Whistler 32.5
Name: SNOWFALL, dtype: float64
Using pandas on Snowflake with Snowpark DataFrames¶
The pandas on Snowflake and DataFrame API is highly interoperable, so you can build a pipeline that leverages both APIs.
You can use the following operations to do conversions between Snowpark DataFrames and Snowpark pandas DataFrames:
Operation |
Input |
Output |
Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Snowpark DataFrame |
Snowpark pandas DataFrame |
This operation assigns an implicit order to each row, and maintains this row order during the lifetime of the DataFrame. I/O cost will be incurred in this conversion. |
|
Snowpark pandas DataFrame or Snowpark pandas Series |
Snowpark DataFrame |
This operation does not maintain the row ordering, and the resulting Snowpark DataFrame operates on a data snapshot of the source Snowpark pandas DataFrame. Unlike Snowpark DataFrames created from the table directly, this behavior means that changes to the underlying table will not be reflected during the evaluation of the Snowpark operations. No DDL operations and limited DML operations can be applied on the DataFrame. No I/O cost will be incurred in this conversion. |
Whenever possible, we advise using read_snowflake to read the table from Snowflake directly instead of converting it to and from a Snowpark DataFrame to avoid unnecessary conversion costs.
For more information, see Snowpark DataFrames vs Snowpark pandas DataFrame: Which should I choose?.
How pandas on Snowflake compares to native pandas¶
pandas on Snowflake and native pandas have similar DataFrame APIs with matching signatures and similar semantics. pandas on Snowflake provides the same API signature as native pandas (pandas 2.2.1) and provides scalable computation with Snowflake. pandas on Snowflake respects the semantics described in the native pandas documentation as much as possible, but it uses the Snowflake computation and type system. However, when native pandas executes on a client machine, it uses the Python computation and type system. For information about the type mapping between pandas on Snowflake and Snowflake, see Data types.
Like native pandas, pandas on Snowflake also has the notion of an index and maintains row ordering. However, their distinct execution environments cause certain nuanced differences in their behavior. This section calls out the key differences to be aware of.
pandas on Snowflake is best used with data which is already in Snowflake, but you can use the following operations to convert between native pandas and pandas on Snowflake:
Operation |
Input |
Output |
Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Snowpark pandas DataFrame |
native pandas DataFrame |
Materialize all data to the local environment. If the dataset is large, this may result in an out of memory error. |
|
Native pandas DataFrame, raw data, Snowpark pandas object |
Snowpark pandas DataFrame |
This should be reserved for small DataFrames. Creating a DataFrame with large amounts of local data will introduce a temp table and might incur performance issues due to data uploading. |
|
Native pandas DataFrame, Snowpark pandas object |
Snowflake table |
The result can be subsequently loaded into pandas on Snowflake with |
Execution environment¶
pandas
: Operates on a single machine and processes data in memory.pandas on Snowflake
: Integrates with Snowflake, which allows for distributed computing across a cluster of machines. This integration enables handling of much larger datasets that exceed the memory capacity of a single machine. Note that using the Snowpark pandas API requires a connection to Snowflake.
Lazy vs. eager evaluation¶
pandas
: Executes operations immediately and materializes results fully in memory after each operation. This eager evaluation of operations might lead to increased memory pressure as data needs to be moved extensively within a machine.pandas on Snowflake
: Provides the same API experience as pandas. It mimics the eager evaluation model of pandas, but internally builds a lazily-evaluated query graph to enable optimization across operations.Fusing and transpiling operations through a query graph enables additional optimization opportunities for the underlying distributed Snowflake compute engine, which decreases both cost and end-to-end pipeline runtime compared to running pandas directly within Snowflake.
Note
I/O related APIs and APIs whose return value is not a Snowpark pandas object (i.e.
DataFrame
,Series
orIndex
) always evaluate eagerly. For example:read_snowflake
to_snowflake
to_pandas
to_dict
to_list
__repr__
The dunder method,
__array__
which can be called automatically by some 3rd party libraries such as scikit-learn. Calls to this method will materialize results to the local machine.
Data source and storage¶
pandas
: Supports the various readers and writers listed in the pandas documentation in IO tools (text, CSV, HDF5, …).pandas on Snowflake
: Can read and write from Snowflake tables and read local or staged CSV, JSON, or parquet files. For more information, see IO (Read and Write).
Data types¶
pandas
: Has a rich set of data types, such as integers, floats, strings,datetime
types, and categorical types. It also supports user-defined data types. Data types in pandas are typically derived from the underlying data and are enforced strictly.pandas on Snowflake
: Constrained by Snowflake type system, which maps pandas objects to SQL by translating the pandas data types to the SQL types in Snowflake. A majority of pandas types have a natural equivalent in Snowflake, but the mapping is not always one to one. In some cases, multiple pandas types are mapped to the same SQL type.
The following table lists the type mappings between pandas and Snowflake SQL:
pandas type |
Snowflake type |
---|---|
All signed/unsigned integer types, including pandas extended integer types |
NUMBER(38, 0) |
All float types, including pandas extended float data types |
FLOAT |
|
BOOLEAN |
|
STRING |
|
TIME |
|
DATE |
All timezone-naive |
TIMESTAMP_NTZ |
All timezone-aware |
TIMESTAMP_TZ |
|
ARRAY |
|
MAP |
Object column with mixed data types |
VARIANT |
Timedelta64[ns] |
NUMBER(38, 0) |
Note
Categorical, period, interval, sparse, and user-defined data types are not supported. Timedelta is only supported on the pandas on Snowpark client today. When writing Timedelta back to Snowflake, it will be stored as Number type.
The following table provides the mapping of Snowflake SQL types back to pandas on Snowflake types using df.dtypes
:
Snowflake type |
pandas on Snowflake type ( |
---|---|
NUMBER ( |
|
NUMBER ( |
|
BOOLEAN |
|
STRING, TEXT |
|
VARIANT, BINARY, GEOMETRY, GEOGRAPHY |
|
ARRAY |
|
OBJECT |
|
TIME |
|
TIMESTAMP, TIMESTAMP_NTZ, TIMESTAMP_LTZ, TIMESTAMP_TZ |
|
DATE |
|
When converting from the Snowpark pandas DataFrame to native pandas DataFrame with to_pandas()
, the native pandas DataFrame will
have refined data types compared to the pandas on Snowflake types, which are compatible with the SQL-Python Data Type Mappings for
functions and procedures.
Casting and type inference¶
pandas
: Relies on NumPy and by default follows the NumPy and Python type system for implicit type casting and inference. For example, it treats booleans as integer types, so1 + True
returns2
.pandas on Snowflake
: Maps NumPy and Python types to Snowflake types according to the preceding table, and uses the underlying Snowflake type system for implicit type casting and inference. For example, in accordance with the Logical data types, it does not implicitly convert booleans to integer types, so1 + True
results in a type conversion error.
Null value handling¶
pandas
: In pandas versions 1.x, pandas was flexible when handling missing data, so it treated all of PythonNone
,np.nan
,pd.NaN
,pd.NA
, andpd.NaT
as missing values. In later versions of pandas (2.2.x) these values are treated as different values.pandas on Snowflake
: Adopts a similar approach to earlier pandas versions that treats all of the preceding values listed as missing values. Snowpark reusesNaN
,NA
, andNaT
from pandas. But note that all these missing values are treated interchangeably and stored as SQL NULL in the Snowflake table.
Offset/frequency aliases¶
pandas
: Date offsets in pandas changed in version 2.2.1. The single-letter aliases'M'
,'Q'
,'Y'
, and others have been deprecated in favor of two-letter offsets.pandas on Snowflake
: Exclusively uses the new offsets described in the pandas time series documentation.
Installation¶
Prerequisites: Python 3.9, 3.10 or 3.11, modin version 0.28.1, and pandas version 2.2.1 are required.
Tip
To use pandas on Snowflake in Snowflake Notebooks, see the setup instructions in pandas on Snowflake in notebooks.
To install pandas on Snowflake in your development environment, follow these steps:
Change to your project directory and activate your Python virtual environment.
Note
The API is under active development, so we recommend installing it in a Python virtual environment rather than system-wide. This practice allows each project you create to use a specific version, insulating you from changes in future versions.
You can create a Python virtual environment for a particular Python version using tools like Anaconda, Miniconda, or virtualenv.
For example, to use conda to create a Python 3.9 virtual environment, type:
conda create --name snowpark_pandas python=3.9 conda activate snowpark_pandas
Note
If you previously installed an older version of pandas on Snowflake using Python 3.8 and pandas 1.5.3, you will need to upgrade your Python and pandas versions as described above. Follow the steps to create a new environment with Python 3.9, 3.10, or 3.11.
Install the Snowpark Python library with Modin.
pip install "snowflake-snowpark-python[modin]"
or
conda install snowflake-snowpark-python modin==0.28.1
Note
Make sure
snowflake-snowpark-python
version 1.17.0 or later is installed.
Authenticating to Snowflake¶
Before using pandas on Snowflake , you must establish a session with the Snowflake database. You can use a config file to choose the connection parameters for your session or you can enumerate them in your code. For more information, see Creating a Session for Snowpark Python. If a unique active Snowpark Python session exists, pandas on Snowflake will automatically use it. For example:
import modin.pandas as pd
import snowflake.snowpark.modin.plugin
from snowflake.snowpark import Session
CONNECTION_PARAMETERS = {
'account': '<myaccount>',
'user': '<myuser>',
'password': '<mypassword>',
'role': '<myrole>',
'database': '<mydatabase>',
'schema': '<myschema>',
'warehouse': '<mywarehouse>',
}
session = Session.builder.configs(CONNECTION_PARAMETERS).create()
# pandas on Snowflake will automatically pick up the Snowpark session created above.
# It will use that session to create new DataFrames.
df = pd.DataFrame([1, 2])
df2 = pd.read_snowflake('CUSTOMER')
The pd.session
is a Snowpark session, so you can do anything with it that you can do with any other Snowpark session. For example, you can use it to execute an arbitrary SQL query,
which results in a Snowpark DataFrame as per the Session API, but take note that
the results of this will be a Snowpark DataFrame, not a Snowpark pandas DataFrame.
# pd.session is the session that pandas on Snowflake is using for new DataFrames.
# In this case it is the same as the Snowpark session that we've created.
assert pd.session is session
# Run SQL query with returned result as Snowpark DataFrame
snowpark_df = pd.session.sql('select * from customer')
snowpark_df.show()
Alternatively, you can configure your Snowpark connection parameters in a configuration file.
This eliminates the need to enumerate connection parameters in your code, allowing you to write your pandas on Snowflake code almost as you would normally write pandas code.
To achieve this, create a configuration file located at ~/.snowflake/connections.toml
that looks something like this:
default_connection_name = "default"
[default]
account = "<myaccount>"
user = "<myuser>"
password = "<mypassword>"
role="<myrole>"
database = "<mydatabase>"
schema = "<myschema>"
warehouse = "<mywarehouse>"
Then in the code, you only need to use snowflake.snowpark.Session.builder.create()
to create a session using these credentials.
import modin.pandas as pd
import snowflake.snowpark.modin.plugin
from snowflake.snowpark import Session
# Session.builder.create() will create a default Snowflake connection.
Session.builder.create()
# create a DataFrame.
df = pd.DataFrame([[1, 2], [3, 4]])
You can also create multiple Snowpark sessions, then assign one of them to pandas on Snowflake. pandas on Snowflake only uses one session, so you have to explicitly assign one
of the sessions to pandas on Snowflake with pd.session = pandas_session
.
import modin.pandas as pd
import snowflake.snowpark.modin.plugin
from snowflake.snowpark import Session
pandas_session = Session.builder.configs({"user": "<user>", "password": "<password>", "account": "<account1>").create()
other_session = Session.builder.configs({"user": "<user>", "password": "<password>", "account": "<account2>").create()
pd.session = pandas_session
df = pd.DataFrame([1, 2, 3])
The following example shows that trying to use pandas on Snowflake when there is no active Snowpark session will raise a SnowparkSessionException
with an
error like “pandas on Snowflake requires an active snowpark session, but there is none.” Once you create a session, you can use pandas on Snowflake. For example:
import modin.pandas as pd
import snowflake.snowpark.modin.plugin
df = pd.DataFrame([1, 2, 3])
The following example shows that trying to use pandas on Snowflake when there are multiple active Snowpark sessions will cause
a SnowparkSessionException
with a message like, “There are multiple active snowpark sessions, but you need to choose one for pandas on Snowflake.”
import modin.pandas as pd
import snowflake.snowpark.modin.plugin
from snowflake.snowpark import Session
pandas_session = Session.builder.configs({"user": "<user>", "password": "<password>", "account": "<account1>"}).create()
other_session = Session.builder.configs({"user": "<user>", "password": "<password>", "account": "<account2>"}).create()
df = pd.DataFrame([1, 2, 3])
Note
You must set the session used for a new Snowpark pandas DataFrame or Series via modin.pandas.session
.
However, joining or merging DataFrames created with different sessions is not supported, so you should avoid repeatedly setting different sessions
and creating DataFrames with different sessions in a workflow.
API Reference¶
See the pandas on Snowflake API reference for the full list of currently implemented APIs and methods available.
For a full list of supported operations, see the following tables in pandas on Snowflake reference:
Using pandas on Snowflake with Snowflake notebooks¶
To use pandas on Snowflake in Snowflake notebooks, see pandas on Snowflake in notebooks.
Using pandas on Snowflake in stored procedures¶
You can use pandas on Snowflake in a stored procedure to build a data pipeline and schedule the execution of the stored procedure with tasks.
from snowflake.snowpark.context import get_active_session
session = get_active_session()
from snowflake.snowpark import Session
def data_transformation_pipeline(session: Session) -> str:
import modin.pandas as pd
import snowflake.snowpark.modin.plugin
from datetime import datetime
# Create a Snowpark pandas DataFrame with sample data.
df = pd.DataFrame([[1, 'Big Bear', 8],[2, 'Big Bear', 10],[3, 'Big Bear', None],
[1, 'Tahoe', 3],[2, 'Tahoe', None],[3, 'Tahoe', 13],
[1, 'Whistler', None],['Friday', 'Whistler', 40],[3, 'Whistler', 25]],
columns=["DAY", "LOCATION", "SNOWFALL"])
# Drop rows with null values.
df = df.dropna()
# In-place point update to fix data error.
df.loc[df["DAY"]=="Friday","DAY"]=2
# Save Results as a Snowflake Table
timestamp = datetime.now().strftime("%Y_%m_%d_%H_%M")
save_path = f"OUTPUT_{timestamp}"
df.to_snowflake(name=save_path, if_exists="replace", index=False)
return f'Transformed DataFrame saved to {save_path}.'
dt_pipeline_sproc = session.sproc.register(name="run_data_transformation_pipeline_sp",
func=data_transformation_pipeline,
replace=True,
packages=['modin', 'snowflake-snowpark-python'])
To call the stored procedure, you can run dt_pipeline_sproc()
in Python or CALL run_data_transformation_pipeline_sp()
in SQL.
To schedule the stored procedure as a task, you can use the Snowflake Python API to create a task.
Using pandas on Snowflake with third-party libraries¶
When calling third-party library APIs with a Snowpark pandas DataFrame, we recommend converting the Snowpark pandas DataFrame to a pandas DataFrame by calling to_pandas() before passing the DataFrame to the third-party library call.
Note
Calling to_pandas()
pulls your data out of Snowflake and into memory, so keep that in mind for large datasets and sensitive use cases.
pandas on Snowflake currently has limited compatibility for certain NumPy and Matplotlib APIs, such as distributed implementation for np.where
and interoperability with df.plot
. Converting Snowpark pandas DataFrames via to_pandas()
when working with these third-party libraries will avoid multiple I/O calls.
Here is an example with Altair for visualization and scikit-learn for machine learning.
# Create a Snowpark session with a default connection.
session = Session.builder.create()
train = pd.read_snowflake('TITANIC')
train[['Pclass', 'Parch', 'Sex', 'Survived']].head()
Pclass Parch Sex Survived
0 3 0 male 0
1 1 0 female 1
2 3 0 female 1
3 1 0 female 1
4 3 0 male 0
import altair as alt
# Convert to pandas DataFrame
train_df_pandas = train.to_pandas()
survived_per_age_plot = alt.Chart(train_df_pandas).mark_bar(
).encode(
x=alt.X('Age', bin=alt.Bin(maxbins=25)),
y='count()',
column='Survived:N',
color='Survived:N',
).properties(
width=300,
height=300
).configure_axis(
grid=False
)
survived_per_age_plot
We can now use scikit-learn to train a simple model after converting to pandas.
feature_cols = ['Pclass', 'Parch']
# Convert features DataFrame to pandas DataFrames
X_pandas = train_snowpark_pandas.loc[:, feature_cols].to_pandas()
# Convert labels Series to pandas Series
y_pandas = train_snowpark_pandas["Survived"].to_pandas()
from sklearn.linear_model import LogisticRegression
logreg = LogisticRegression()
logreg.fit(X_pandas, y_pandas)
y_pred_pandas = logreg.predict(X_pandas)
acc_eval = accuracy_score(y_pandas, y_pred_pandas)
Limitations¶
pandas on Snowflake has the following limitations:
pandas on Snowflake provides no guarantee of compatibility with OSS third-party libraries. Starting with version 1.14.0a1, however, Snowpark pandas introduces limited compatibility for NumPy, specifically for
np.where
usage. For more information, see NumPy Interoperability.When calling third-party library APIs with a Snowpark pandas DataFrame, Snowflake recommends that you convert the Snowpark pandas DataFrame to a pandas DataFrame by calling
to_pandas()
before passing the DataFrame to the third-party library call. For more information, see Using pandas on Snowflake with third-party libraries.pandas on Snowflake is not integrated with Snowpark ML. When using Snowpark ML, we recommend that you convert the Snowpark pandas DataFrame to a Snowpark DataFrame using to_snowpark() before calling Snowpark ML.
Lazy
MultiIndex
objects are not supported. WhenMultiIndex
is used, it returns a native pandasMultiIndex
object, which requires pulling all data to the client side.Not all pandas APIs have a distributed implementation yet in pandas on Snowflake. For unsupported APIs,
NotImplementedError
is thrown. Operations that have no distributed implementation fall back to a stored procedure. For information about supported APIs, refer to the API reference documentation.pandas on Snowflake requires a specific pandas version. pandas on Snowflake requires pandas 2.2.1, and only provides compatibility with pandas 2.2.1.
pandas on Snowflake cannot be referenced within the pandas on Snowflake
apply()
function. You can only use native pandas insideapply()
.
Troubleshooting¶
This section describes troubleshooting tips when using pandas on Snowflake.
When troubleshooting, try running the same operation on a native pandas DataFrame (or a sample) to see if the same error persists. This approach might provide hints on how to fix your query. For example:
df = pd.DataFrame({"a": [1,2,3], "b": ["x", "y", "z"]}) # Running this in Snowpark pandas throws an error df["A"].sum() # Convert a small sample of 10 rows to pandas DataFrame for testing pandas_df = df.head(10).to_pandas() # Run the same operation. KeyError indicates that the column reference is incorrect pandas_df["A"].sum() # Fix the column reference to get the Snowpark pandas query working df["a"].sum()
If you have a long-running notebook opened, note that by default Snowflake sessions timeout after the session is idle for 240 minutes (4 hours). When the session expires, you will get the following error if you run additional pandas on Snowflake queries: “Authentication token has expired. The user must authenticate again.” At this point, you must re-establish the connection to Snowflake again. This may result in loss of any unpersisted session variables. For more information about how to configure the session idle timeout parameter, see Session Policies.
Best practices¶
This section describes best practices to follow when using pandas on Snowflake.
Avoid using iterative code patterns, such as
for
loops,iterrows
, anditeritems
. Iterative code patterns quickly increase the generated query complexity. Let pandas on Snowflake perform the data distribution and computation parallelization rather than the client code. When it comes to iterative code patterns, try to look for operations that can be performed on the whole DataFrame and use the corresponding operations instead.
for i in np.arange(0, 50):
if i % 2 == 0:
data = pd.concat([data, pd.DataFrame({'A': i, 'B': i + 1}, index=[0])], ignore_index=True)
else:
data = pd.concat([data, pd.DataFrame({'A': i}, index=[0])], ignore_index=True)
# Instead of creating one DataFrame per row and concatenating them,
# try to directly create the DataFrame out of the data, like this:
data = pd.DataFrame(
{
"A": range(0, 50),
"B": [i + 1 if i % 2 == 0 else None for i in range(50)],
},
)
Avoid calling
apply
,applymap
andtransform
, which are eventually implemented with UDFs or UDTFs, which might not be as performant as regular SQL queries. If the function applied has an equivalent DataFrame or series operation, use that operation instead. For example, instead ofdf.groupby('col1').apply('sum')
, directly calldf.groupby('col1').sum()
.Call
to_pandas()
before passing the DataFrame or series to a third-party library call. pandas on Snowflake does not provide a compatibility guarantee with third-party libraries.Use a materialized regular Snowflake table to avoid extra I/O overhead. pandas on Snowflake works on top of a data snapshot that only works for regular tables. For other types, including external tables, views, and Apache Iceberg™ tables, a temporary table is created before taking the snapshot, which introduces extra materialization overhead.
pandas on Snowflake provides fast and zero copy clone capability while creating DataFrames from Snowflake tables using
read_snowflake
. However, the snapshot capability is only provided for regular Snowflake tables under normal databases. Extra materialization to regular Snowflake tables will be introduced when loading tables with types like hybrid, iceberg etc., or tables under shared databases. The snapshot is required to provide data consistency and ordering guarantee, and there is currently no other way to work around the extra materialization, please try to use normal Snowflake tables as much as possible when using pandas on Snowflake.Double check the result type before proceeding to other operations, and do explicit type casting with
astype
if needed.Due to limited type inference capability, if no type hint is given,
df.apply
will return results of object (variant) type even if the result contains all integer values. If other operations require thedtype
to beint
, you can do an explicit type casting by calling theastype
method to correct the column type before you continue.Avoid calling APIs that require evaluation and materialization if not necessary.
APIs that don’t return
Series
orDataframe
require eager evaluation and materialization to produce the result in the correct type. Same for plotting methods. Reduce calls to those APIs to minimize unnecessary evaluations and materialization.Avoid calling
np.where(<cond>, <scalar>, n)
on large datasets. The<scalar>
will be broadcast to a DataFrame the size of<cond>
, which may be slow.When working with iteratively built queries,
df.cache_result
can be used to materialize intermediate results to reduce the repeated evaluation and improve the latency and reduce complexity of the overall query. For example:df = pd.read_snowflake('pandas_test') df2 = pd.pivot_table(df, index='index_col', columns='pivot_col') # expensive operation df3 = df.merge(df2) df4 = df3.where(df2 == True)
In the example above, the query to produce
df2
is expensive to compute, and is reused in the creation of bothdf3
anddf4
. Materializingdf2
into a temporary table (making subsequent operations involvingdf2
a table scan instead of a pivot) can reduce the overall latency of the code block:df = pd.read_snowflake('pandas_test') df2 = pd.pivot_table(df, index='index_col', columns='pivot_col') # expensive operation df2.cache_result(inplace=True) df3 = df.merge(df2) df4 = df3.where(df2 == True)
Examples¶
Here is a code example with pandas operations. We start with a Snowpark pandas DataFrame named pandas_test
, which contains three
columns: COL_STR
, COL_FLOAT
, and COL_INT
. To view the notebook associated with these examples, see the
pandas on Snowflake examples in the Snowflake-Labs repository.
import modin.pandas as pd
import snowflake.snowpark.modin.plugin
from snowflake.snowpark import Session
CONNECTION_PARAMETERS = {
'account': '<myaccount>',
'user': '<myuser>',
'password': '<mypassword>',
'role': '<myrole>',
'database': '<mydatabase>',
'schema': '<myschema>',
'warehouse': '<mywarehouse>',
}
session = Session.builder.configs(CONNECTION_PARAMETERS).create()
df = pd.DataFrame([['a', 2.1, 1],['b', 4.2, 2],['c', 6.3, None]], columns=["COL_STR", "COL_FLOAT", "COL_INT"])
df
COL_STR COL_FLOAT COL_INT
0 a 2.1 1.0
1 b 4.2 2.0
2 c 6.3 NaN
We save the DataFrame as a Snowflake table named pandas_test
which we will use throughout our examples.
df.to_snowflake("pandas_test", if_exists='replace',index=False)
Next, we create a DataFrame from the Snowflake table. We drop the column COL_INT
and then
save the result back to Snowflake with a column named row_position
.
# Create a DataFrame out of a Snowflake table.
df = pd.read_snowflake('pandas_test')
df.shape
(3, 3)
df.head(2)
COL_STR COL_FLOAT COL_INT
0 a 2.1 1
1 b 4.2 2
df.dropna(subset=["COL_FLOAT"], inplace=True)
df
COL_STR COL_FLOAT COL_INT
0 a 2.1 1
1 c 6.3 2
df.shape
(2, 3)
df.dtypes
COL_STR object
COL_FLOAT float64
COL_INT int64
dtype: object
# Save the result back to Snowflake with a row_pos column.
df.reset_index(drop=True).to_snowflake('pandas_test2', if_exists='replace', index=True, index_label=['row_pos'])
You end up with a new table, pandas_test2
, which looks like this:
row_pos COL_STR COL_FLOAT COL_INT
0 1 a 2.0 1
1 2 b 4.0 2
IO (Read and Write)¶
# Reading and writing to Snowflake
df = pd.DataFrame({"fruit": ["apple", "orange"], "size": [3.4, 5.4], "weight": [1.4, 3.2]})
df.to_snowflake("test_table", if_exists="replace", index=False )
df_table = pd.read_snowflake("test_table")
# Generate sample CSV file
with open("data.csv", "w") as f:
f.write('fruit,size,weight\napple,3.4,1.4\norange,5.4,3.2')
# Read from local CSV file
df_csv = pd.read_csv("data.csv")
# Generate sample JSON file
with open("data.json", "w") as f:
f.write('{"fruit":"apple", "size":3.4, "weight":1.4},{"fruit":"orange", "size":5.4, "weight":3.2}')
# Read from local JSON file
df_json = pd.read_json('data.json')
# Upload data.json and data.csv to Snowflake stage named @TEST_STAGE
# Read CSV and JSON file from stage
df_csv = pd.read_csv('@TEST_STAGE/data.csv')
df_json = pd.read_json('@TEST_STAGE/data.json')
For more information, see Input/Output.
Indexing¶
df = pd.DataFrame({"a": [1,2,3], "b": ["x", "y", "z"]})
df.columns
Index(['a', 'b'], dtype='object')
df.index
Index([0, 1, 2], dtype='int8')
df["a"]
0 1
1 2
2 3
Name: a, dtype: int8
df["b"]
0 x
1 y
2 z
Name: b, dtype: object
df.iloc[0,1]
'x'
df.loc[df["a"] > 2]
a b
2 3 z
df.columns = ["c", "d"]
df
c d
0 1 x
1 2 y
2 3 z
df = df.set_index("c")
df
d
c
1 x
2 y
3 z
df.rename(columns={"d": "renamed"})
renamed
c
1 x
2 y
3 z
Missing values¶
import numpy as np
df = pd.DataFrame([[np.nan, 2, np.nan, 0],
[3, 4, np.nan, 1],
[np.nan, np.nan, np.nan, np.nan],
[np.nan, 3, np.nan, 4]],
columns=list("ABCD"))
df
A B C D
0 NaN 2.0 NaN 0.0
1 3.0 4.0 NaN 1.0
2 NaN NaN NaN NaN
3 NaN 3.0 NaN 4.0
df.isna()
A B C D
0 True False True False
1 False False True False
2 True True True True
3 True False True False
df.fillna(0)
A B C D
0 0.0 2.0 0.0 0.0
1 3.0 4.0 0.0 1.0
2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
3 0.0 3.0 0.0 4.0
df.dropna(how="all")
A B C D
0 NaN 2.0 NaN 0.0
1 3.0 4.0 NaN 1.0
3 NaN 3.0 NaN 4.0
Type conversion¶
df = pd.DataFrame({"int": [1,2,3], "str": ["4", "5", "6"]})
df
int str
0 1 4
1 2 5
2 3 6
df_float = df.astype(float)
df_float
int str
0 1.0 4.0
1 2.0 5.0
2 3.0 6.0
df_float.dtypes
int float64
str float64
dtype: object
pd.to_numeric(df.str)
0 4.0
1 5.0
2 6.0
Name: str, dtype: float64
df = pd.DataFrame({'year': [2015, 2016],
'month': [2, 3],
'day': [4, 5]})
pd.to_datetime(df)
0 2015-02-04
1 2016-03-05
dtype: datetime64[ns]
Binary operations¶
df_1 = pd.DataFrame([[1,2,3],[4,5,6]])
df_2 = pd.DataFrame([[6,7,8]])
df_1.add(df_2)
0 1 2
0 7.0 9.0 11.0
1 NaN NaN NaN
s1 = pd.Series([1, 2, 3])
s2 = pd.Series([2, 2, 2])
s1 + s2
0 3
1 4
2 5
dtype: int64
df = pd.DataFrame({"A": [1,2,3], "B": [4,5,6]})
df["A+B"] = df["A"] + df["B"]
df
A B A+B
0 1 4 5
1 2 5 7
2 3 6 9
Aggregation¶
df = pd.DataFrame([[1, 2, 3],
[4, 5, 6],
[7, 8, 9],
[np.nan, np.nan, np.nan]],
columns=['A', 'B', 'C'])
df.agg(['sum', 'min'])
A B C
sum 12.0 15.0 18.0
min 1.0 2.0 3.0
df.median()
A 4.0
B 5.0
C 6.0
dtype: float64
Merge¶
df1 = pd.DataFrame({'lkey': ['foo', 'bar', 'baz', 'foo'],
'value': [1, 2, 3, 5]})
df1
lkey value
0 foo 1
1 bar 2
2 baz 3
3 foo 5
df2 = pd.DataFrame({'rkey': ['foo', 'bar', 'baz', 'foo'],
'value': [5, 6, 7, 8]})
df2
rkey value
0 foo 5
1 bar 6
2 baz 7
3 foo 8
df1.merge(df2, left_on='lkey', right_on='rkey')
lkey value_x rkey value_y
0 foo 1 foo 5
1 foo 1 foo 8
2 bar 2 bar 6
3 baz 3 baz 7
4 foo 5 foo 5
5 foo 5 foo 8
df = pd.DataFrame({'key': ['K0', 'K1', 'K2', 'K3', 'K4', 'K5'],
'A': ['A0', 'A1', 'A2', 'A3', 'A4', 'A5']})
df
key A
0 K0 A0
1 K1 A1
2 K2 A2
3 K3 A3
4 K4 A4
5 K5 A5
other = pd.DataFrame({'key': ['K0', 'K1', 'K2'],
'B': ['B0', 'B1', 'B2']})
df.join(other, lsuffix='_caller', rsuffix='_other')
key_caller A key_other B
0 K0 A0 K0 B0
1 K1 A1 K1 B1
2 K2 A2 K2 B2
3 K3 A3 None None
4 K4 A4 None None
5 K5 A5 None None
Groupby¶
df = pd.DataFrame({'Animal': ['Falcon', 'Falcon','Parrot', 'Parrot'],
'Max Speed': [380., 370., 24., 26.]})
df
Animal Max Speed
0 Falcon 380.0
1 Falcon 370.0
2 Parrot 24.0
3 Parrot 26.0
df.groupby(['Animal']).mean()
Max Speed
Animal
Falcon 375.0
Parrot 25.0
For more information, see GroupBy.
Pivot¶
df = pd.DataFrame({"A": ["foo", "foo", "foo", "foo", "foo",
"bar", "bar", "bar", "bar"],
"B": ["one", "one", "one", "two", "two",
"one", "one", "two", "two"],
"C": ["small", "large", "large", "small",
"small", "large", "small", "small",
"large"],
"D": [1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7],
"E": [2, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 8, 9, 9]})
df
A B C D E
0 foo one small 1 2
1 foo one large 2 4
2 foo one large 2 5
3 foo two small 3 5
4 foo two small 3 6
5 bar one large 4 6
6 bar one small 5 8
7 bar two small 6 9
8 bar two large 7 9
pd.pivot_table(df, values='D', index=['A', 'B'],
columns=['C'], aggfunc="sum")
C large small
A B
bar one 4.0 5
two 7.0 6
foo one 4.0 1
two NaN 6
df = pd.DataFrame({'foo': ['one', 'one', 'one', 'two', 'two', 'two'],
'bar': ['A', 'B', 'C', 'A', 'B', 'C'],
'baz': [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6],
'zoo': ['x', 'y', 'z', 'q', 'w', 't']})
df
foo bar baz zoo
0 one A 1 x
1 one B 2 y
2 one C 3 z
3 two A 4 q
4 two B 5 w
5 two C 6 t