Python pandas stuck at version 0.7.0

Question

First off, I'm a novice... I'm a newbie to Python, pandas, and Linux.

I'm getting some errors when trying to populate a DataFrame (sql.read_frame() gives an exception when trying to read from my MySQL DB, but I am able to execute and fetch a query / stored proc). I noticed that pandas is at version 0.7.0, and running "sudo apt-get install python-pandas" just says that it's up to date (no errors): "... python-pandas is already the newest version. 0 upgraded..."

Based on some other posts I found on the web, I think my DataFrame problem may be due to the older version of pandas (something about a pandas bug involving tuples of tuples?). Why won't pandas update to a more current version?

Setup:

Ubuntu: 12.04.2 LTS Desktop (virtual workstation on VMWare)
sudo apt-get update, sudo apt-get upgrade, and sudo apt-get dist-upgrade all current
Python: 2.7.3 (default, April 10 2013, 06:20:15) /n [GCC 4.6.3] on Linux2
$ "which python" only show a single instance: /usr/bin/python
pandas.__version__ = 0.7.0
numpy.__version__ = 1.6.1

I tried installing Anaconda previously, but that turned into a big nightmare, with conflicting versions of Python. I finally rolled back to previous VM snapshot and started over, installing all of the MySQL, pandas, and iPython using apt-get on the individual packages.

I'm not having any other problems on this workstation... apt-get seems to be working fine in general, and all other apps (MySQL Workbench, Kettle / spoon, etc.) are all working properly and up to date.

Any ideas why Python pandas won't upgrade to 0.11.0? Thank you.

Answer 1

"pip install --upgrade pandas" did not work for me on a fresh Ubuntu: 12.04.2 LTS Desktop instance. Within Python, pandas was still showing version 0.7.0.

Instead, I was able to get the update through by using easy install:

sudo easy_install -U pandas

Answer 2

As nitin points out, you can simply upgrade pandas using pip:

pip install --upgrade pandas

Since this version of pandas will be installed in site-packages you will, in fact, be at the mercy of any automatic updates to packages within that directory. It's wise to install the versions of packages you want into a virtual environment so you have a consistent working environment with the bonus of reproducibility.

To answer your last question, the reason Pandas won't "upgrade" to 0.11.0 using apt-get update is that packages (of Pandas) from your distribution lag behind or haven't been created yet.