Chapter 1
Data Preparation and Cleaning

Learning Objectives

By the end of this chapter, you will be able to:

• Create pandas DataFrames in Python
• Read and write data into different file formats
• Slice, aggregate, filter, and apply functions (built-in and custom) to DataFrames
• Join DataFrames, handle missing values, and combine different data sources

This chapter covers basic data preparation and manipulation techniques in Python, which is the foundation of data science.