pandas Immutable DataFrame

Question

I am interested in an Immutable DataFrame to use in a program as a reference table, with read_only properties enforced, after it has been initially constructed (which in my case is during a class def __init__() method).

I see Index Objects are Frozen.

Is there a way to make an entire DataFrame immutable?

Answer 1

The StaticFrame package (of which I am an author) implements a Pandas-like interface, and many common Pandas operations, while enforcing immutability in underlying NumPy arrays and immutable Series and Frame containers.

You can make an entire Pandas DataFrame immutable by converting it to a StaticFrame Frame with static_frame.Frame.from_pandas(df). Then you can use it as a truly read-only table.

See StaticFrame documentation of this method: https://static-frame.readthedocs.io/en/latest/api_detail/frame.html#frame-constructor

Answer 2

Try code something like this

class Bla(object):     def __init__(self):         self._df = pd.DataFrame(index=[1,2,3])      @property     def df(self):         return self._df.copy() 

this will allow you to get the df back, using b.df, but you will not be able to assign to it. So in short you have a df in class that behaves in the "Immutable DataFrame", purely in that it blocks changes to the original. the returned object is however still a mutable data frame so it will not behave like an Immutable one in other ways. I.e. you will not be able to use it as key for dictionary, etc.