EDA and Feature Engineering

# useful packages
import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib import rcParams
rcParams.update({'figure.autolayout':True})
import warnings
warnings.filterwarnings("ignore")

Data Preparation

Before landing a model for optimization or recommendation model, we need to make sure our data is in “ready-to-go” status. Here, I summarized some ways to clean data for future reference.

1. Descriptive Stat
2. Query and Merge
3. Group and Plot Data
4. fill na, replace and assign values
5. Data Transformation on Column (Log, datetime)
6. Check Logic
7. Import Json, parse url and Export File, API

1. Descriptive Stat

data.describe(include = "all")

this will provide basic distribution of each variable. We can use this to observe some extreme or unreasonable values, and process it before further investigations.

# some useful command to get the general overview of a given dataset
# first 5 rows of a dataset
data.head(n=5)
# dimension of a dataset
data.shape
# return the first observation on "source column"
data["col_name"][0] 
# change column name using index
data.columns.values[index] = "new_col_0_name"
# change column name using name 
data.rename(columns = {'old_name':'new_name'}, inplace = True)

2.Query and Merge

data[data["column"] > criteria_value]
data.loc[data.column > criteria_value]
data.query("column == 'criteria_value'")
data.query("column != \"unwanted_value\"").drop(["unwanted_column"], axis = 1)

# merge data1 with data2 
data=pandas.merge(left=data1, right=data2, how='left',
                 left_on = "column 1 in data 1", right_on = "column 2 in data 2")
# check for duplication
print(len(data1) == len(data))

3.Group and Plot Data

# get ... (algorithm) of xyz for each abc
data.groupby("abc column")["xyz column"].algorithm
# plot histogram 
plot.bar()
# plot trendline
plot()

# get count for each level for one categorical column
data.groupby("categorical_column").size().plot.bar()
# get the mean of outcome for each level for one categorical column
data.groupby("categorical_column")["outcome"].mean().plot.bar()

# get the mean of outcome for one continuous column
data.groupby("continous_column")["outcome"].mean().plot()

#group data by id and date, C is continuous variable, D is str
data = data.groupby[("id", "Date")].apply(lambda x: pandas.Series({
                            "max": x["C"].max(),
                            "sum": x["C"].sum(),
                            "mean": x["C"].mean(),
                            "count": x["C"].count(),
                            "cumsum": x["C"].cumsum(),
                            "to_numeric": pd.to_numeric(x["C"]),
                            "pct_C_is_1": np.average(x["C"] == 1),
                            "avg_log": np.average(np.log(x["C"]))
                            "previous_value": x["C"].shift(1),
                            "pct_of_changed": x["C"]/x["C"].shift(1)-1,
                            "num_of_items":  len(x[D].split(',')),
}))

# check the top largest level count
data.groupby("categorical_column").size().nlargest(2).plot.bar()

# check the count for each level
# size() and value_counts only difference are the latter one will return in descending order
data.groupby("categorical_column").size()
data.groupby("categorical_column").value_counts()

# create a new column as count for each levels for one categorical column
# this might be useful as feature enginnering
data.groupby("categorical_column")["categorical_column"].transform("count").head()

# use agg to compute more
data.groupby(["categorical_col1, categorical_col2"])["outcome"].agg({'mean', 'count'}).reset_index()

Note: agg applies function to each group, apply applies function to each column in group

4.fill na, replace and assign values

# find na per column
data.isnull().sum().sort_values()

# fill na for data1 using data2 
# exist non_overlapping row and col indices
data1.combine_first(data2)
# exact the same row and col indices
data1.fillna(data2)

If few columns have same amount to NA, it means they are likely to be linked. Check with logic if this makes sense. If so, replace NA to other value.

# Column A and B have same amount of NA, theoretically it is linked with Column C == 1 or not
(data.A.isnull() == (data.C == 1).value_counts)
(data.B.isnull() == (data.C == 1).value_counts)
# if the results are both True and same count value, then theory is correct
data.A.fillna(-1, inplace = True)
data.B.fillna(-1, inplace = True)
# if column C is binary, we can delete it, since it's no longer carry information
# o/w, we kept it 
del data['C']

# binary response column for value is na or not,  in one column
data.iloc[;,indice].isna()
# fill na for each column with specific value depend on whether that value is na or not
for i in range(4: 8):
    data.iloc[:,i] = np.where(data.iloc[:,i].isna(), 0, 1)

# check for no more NA
print(data.isnull().sum().max())

Just like we investigated NA, we should also pay attention to zeros in column, for example is is_employed ==1, yearly_salary is not likely to be 0. Check how many cases is like that, and dig deeper to figure out.

print(data.query('is_employed == 1 & yearly_salary == 0').shape[0])

# replace value using dictionary
# here we are replacing a categorical column with continuous value
# useful for feature engineering
codes = {"level1": 1, "level2": 2, "level3": 3, "level4": 4}
# replace vs map, map is quicker
#for map, to avoid the situation where there is no valid key you can pass na_action='ignore'
data["replace_column"] = data["replace_column"].map(codes)
data["replace_column"] = data["replace_column"].replace(codes)

# assign value in column2 based on value in column1
data.loc[data.column1 == criteria_value, "column2"] = "new_value"
# data_cp[data_cp.age == 25]["source"] = "Ads" does not work

# assign value based on index
data["column"][row_num] = "new_value"

# assign value for entire column
data["new_column"] = new_value

5.Data Transformation on Column (Log, datetime, str)

a. Log transformation

Note: if original data have negative value, log transformation might not be ideal.

After log, going from 6th to 5th weight less than from 2nd to 1st

data["column"] = np.log(data["column"])

b. Datetime Transformation

data['timestamp'] = pd.to_datetime(data['timestamp'], unit = 's')
# extract hour
data['hour']=data['timestamp'].apply(lambda x: x.hour)
sns.countplot(x='hour', data=data)
plt.show()
# Extract week of the year and day of the week from date
data['weekday']  = pd.to_datetime(data['date']).dt.strftime('%A')
data['weekyear'] = pd.to_datetime(data['date']).dt.strftime('%U').astype(int)
# or
data['weekyear'] = pandas.to_datetime(data.date).dt.week

c. str transformation

# if we want to combine column A and B, both column has str format
new_col = data.A + " and " + data.B

# count items separate by comma
data['count'] = purchase['column'].apply(lambda x: len(x.split(',')))

6.Check Logic

• check if id is unique
• check for negative values
• for funnel analysis, check direction of funnel
• for records generated by consecutive date, check if it’s actually consecutive

# 1. check if id is unique
print(data['id_column'].nunique()==len(data))
# if True, then is unique

# 2. check for negative values for column 1
print("There are", len(data.query('column1<0')),
      "events with negative values")

# 3. for funnel analysis, always check with the direction of funnel
# order down in funnel : layer1, layer2, layer3
print((data['layer1'] >= data['layer2']).unique())
print((data['layer2'] >= data['layer3']).unique())
# or
print("There are", len(data.query('layer1<layer2 | layer2<layer3')),
      "events where the funnel doesn't make any sense")

# 4. check if observation collected from each id are from consecutive days
consecutive_days = data.groupby('id')['date'].transform(lambda x: pandas.to_datetime(x).diff())
consecutive_days.dropna().unique().astype('timedelta64[D]')
# if consecutive, return: array([1], dtype='timedelta64[D]')

7.Import and Export Data (Json, URL, API )

• Import Data (Json, URL)

For Json, check the structure first then build a df row by row based on each entry

#Import Json:
import json
with open('code/city_searches.json', 'r') as f:
    data_json = json.load(f)

#extract all the values from the json
data_js = pd.DataFrame(columns=["col1", "col2", "col3"])

for i in range(len(data_json)):
    data_js.loc[i, "col1"]   = data_json[i]["section_name"][indices] 
    data_js.loc[i, "col2"]   = data_json[i]["section_name"][indices] 
    data_js.loc[i, "col3"]   = data_json[i]["section_name"][indices] 
    

Fro URL, use following standard code to convert it to data frame.

data = pd.read_csv("location_of_url_file", delimiter = "", header = None, names = ['url'])
data_wide = pd.DataFrame()
for i in range(len(data)):
    params_extracted = pd.DataFrame([parse.parse_qs(parse.urlparse(data.url[i]).query)])
    data_wide = data_wide.append(params_extracted, sort = True)
data_wide = data_wide.reset_index()

• Create and Export Data

# create dataframe
data = pd.DataFrame({'column1': list_1, 'column2': list_2})

# export to csv
export_csv = data.to_csv("location", index = None, header = True)
# remember to add '.csv' at the end of the path

• API

# API useful packages
import requests
import requests_cache
requests_cache.install_cache('github_cache', backend='sqlite', expire_after=180)

# different API has different format, using for loop to get value
new_list = ()
for i in range(len(list)):
     API_value = .......(...key = '****'...).....
     new_list.append(API_value)

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