Create Pandas DataFrame from a string

Question

In order to test some functionality I would like to create a DataFrame from a string. Let's say my test data looks like:

TESTDATA="""col1;col2;col3 1;4.4;99 2;4.5;200 3;4.7;65 4;3.2;140 """ 

What is the simplest way to read that data into a Pandas DataFrame?

Answer 1

A simple way to do this is to use StringIO.StringIO (python2) or io.StringIO (python3) and pass that to the pandas.read_csv function. E.g:

import sys if sys.version_info[0] < 3:      from StringIO import StringIO else:     from io import StringIO  import pandas as pd  TESTDATA = StringIO("""col1;col2;col3     1;4.4;99     2;4.5;200     3;4.7;65     4;3.2;140     """)  df = pd.read_csv(TESTDATA, sep=";")