iloc function usage in pandas dataframe

Question

Why does the following error out? What does the notation s1.iloc[:,0].min() stand for?

import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
s1 = pd.Series(np.random.rand(5), index=list(range(0, 10, 2)))
s1.iloc[:,0].min()


Traceback (most recent call last):

  File "<ipython-input-324-b57fa06dca84>", line 1, in <module>
    s1.iloc[:,0].min()

  File "C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Local\Continuum\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\pandas\core\indexing.py", line 1325, in __getitem__
    return self._getitem_tuple(key)

  File "C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Local\Continuum\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\pandas\core\indexing.py", line 1662, in _getitem_tuple
    self._has_valid_tuple(tup)

  File "C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Local\Continuum\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\pandas\core\indexing.py", line 188, in _has_valid_tuple
    raise IndexingError('Too many indexers')

IndexingError: Too many indexers

Answer 1

A series (pd.Series) object is one-dimensional. It consists of an array-like container of items together with an index.

Therefore, like any one-dimensional array, only one index is permitted.

For the minimum value of a series, use s1.min().

The syntax x.iloc[:, 0].min() is used where x is a dataframe (pd.DataFrame). In other words, it is used to calculate the minimum of the first column across all rows.