Python, any() method for data analysis

Question

I'm currently going through the book called python for data analysis.

There's a part about finding outliers and it looks something like this (check the code).

Although it doesn't look hard at first glance it made me realise that I don't really understand python's any function even though it appears to be easy.

Most resources I checked just mention things like "any() is a built-in function in Python 3, to check if any of the items of an iterable 14 is True. It takes one argument, iterable." source (https://www.freecodecamp.org/forum/t/python-any-iterable/19210)

This simple definition I understand by in this example how is the number 1 an iterable? I've checked the code and it does somehow require this 1. Also the python documentation only mentions it being an built-in function that takes an argument in the parenthesis which is an iterable. However, there is lacking information of how any is used as a method like in the example below.

python documentation for built-in functions: https://docs.python.org/3/library/functions.html#any

Please could someone enlighten me? (Main parts of the questions have been bolded for clarity)

data[(np.abs(data)>0.8).any(1)]

Answer 1

That is because the any you have here is not the builtin one, but rather the numpy one. In you console try:

help(any)

and

help(np.array(1).any)

to see the difference. any in your case is the axis to check if any value along said axis evaluates to True.