DataFrame Models

new in 0.5.0

pandera provides a class-based API that’s heavily inspired by pydantic. In contrast to the object-based API, you can define dataframe models in much the same way you’d define pydantic models.

DataFrameModel s are annotated with the pandera.typing module using the standard typing syntax. Models can be explicitly converted to a DataFrameSchema or used to validate a DataFrame directly.

Note

Due to current limitations in the pandas library (see discussion here), pandera annotations are only used for run-time validation and has limited support for static-type checkers like mypy. See the Mypy Integration for more details.

Basic Usage

import pandas as pd
import pandera as pa
from pandera.typing import Index, DataFrame, Series


class InputSchema(pa.DataFrameModel):
    year: Series[int] = pa.Field(gt=2000, coerce=True)
    month: Series[int] = pa.Field(ge=1, le=12, coerce=True)
    day: Series[int] = pa.Field(ge=0, le=365, coerce=True)

class OutputSchema(InputSchema):
    revenue: Series[float]

@pa.check_types
def transform(df: DataFrame[InputSchema]) -> DataFrame[OutputSchema]:
    return df.assign(revenue=100.0)


df = pd.DataFrame({
    "year": ["2001", "2002", "2003"],
    "month": ["3", "6", "12"],
    "day": ["200", "156", "365"],
})

transform(df)

invalid_df = pd.DataFrame({
    "year": ["2001", "2002", "1999"],
    "month": ["3", "6", "12"],
    "day": ["200", "156", "365"],
})

try:
    transform(invalid_df)
except pa.errors.SchemaError as exc:
    print(exc)
error in check_types decorator of function 'transform': Column 'year' failed element-wise validator number 0: greater_than(2000) failure cases: 1999

As you can see in the examples above, you can define a schema by sub-classing DataFrameModel and defining column/index fields as class attributes. The check_types() decorator is required to perform validation of the dataframe at run-time.

Note that Field s apply to both Column and Index objects, exposing the built-in Check s via key-word arguments.

(New in 0.6.2) When you access a class attribute defined on the schema, it will return the name of the column used in the validated pd.DataFrame. In the example above, this will simply be the string "year".

print(f"Column name for 'year' is {InputSchema.year}\n")
print(df.loc[:, [InputSchema.year, "day"]])
Column name for 'year' is year

   year  day
0  2001  200
1  2002  156
2  2003  365

Using Data Types directly for Column Type Annotations

new in 0.15.0

For conciseness, you can also use type annotations for columns without using the Series generic. This class attributes will be interpreted as Column objects under the hood.

class InputSchema(pa.DataFrameModel):
    year: int = pa.Field(gt=2000, coerce=True)
    month: int = pa.Field(ge=1, le=12, coerce=True)
    day: int = pa.Field(ge=0, le=365, coerce=True)

Reusing Field objects

To define reuseable Field definitions, you need to use functools.partial. This makes sure that each field attribute is bound to a unique Field instance.

from functools import partial
from pandera import DataFrameModel, Field

NormalizedField = partial(Field, ge=0, le=1)

class SchemaWithReusedFields(DataFrameModel):
    xnorm: float = NormalizedField()
    ynorm: float = NormalizedField()

Validate on Initialization

new in 0.8.0

Pandera provides an interface for validating dataframes on initialization. This API uses the pandera.typing.pandas.DataFrame generic type to validated against the DataFrameModel type variable on initialization:

import pandas as pd
import pandera as pa

from pandera.typing import DataFrame, Series


class Schema(pa.DataFrameModel):
    state: Series[str]
    city: Series[str]
    price: Series[int] = pa.Field(in_range={"min_value": 5, "max_value": 20})

DataFrame[Schema](
    {
        'state': ['NY','FL','GA','CA'],
        'city': ['New York', 'Miami', 'Atlanta', 'San Francisco'],
        'price': [8, 12, 10, 16],
    }
)
state city price
0 NY New York 8
1 FL Miami 12
2 GA Atlanta 10
3 CA San Francisco 16

Refer to Supported DataFrame Libraries to see how this syntax applies to other supported dataframe types.

Converting to DataFrameSchema

You can easily convert a DataFrameModel class into a DataFrameSchema:

print(InputSchema.to_schema())
<Schema DataFrameSchema(
    columns={
        'year': <Schema Column(name=year, type=DataType(int64))>
        'month': <Schema Column(name=month, type=DataType(int64))>
        'day': <Schema Column(name=day, type=DataType(int64))>
    },
    checks=[],
    parsers=[],
    coerce=False,
    dtype=None,
    index=None,
    strict=False,
    name=InputSchema,
    ordered=False,
    unique_column_names=False,
    metadata=None, 
    add_missing_columns=False
)>

You can also use the validate() method to validate dataframes:

print(InputSchema.validate(df))
   year  month  day
0  2001      3  200
1  2002      6  156
2  2003     12  365

Or you can use the DataFrameModel() class directly to validate dataframes, which is syntactic sugar that simply delegates to the validate() method.

print(InputSchema(df))
   year  month  day
0  2001      3  200
1  2002      6  156
2  2003     12  365

Validate Against Multiple Schemas

new in 0.14.0

The built-in typing.Union type is supported for multiple DataFrame schemas.

from typing import Union
import pandas as pd
import pandera as pa
from pandera.typing import DataFrame, Series

class OnlyZeroesSchema(pa.DataFrameModel):
    a: Series[int] = pa.Field(eq=0)

class OnlyOnesSchema(pa.DataFrameModel):
    a: Series[int] = pa.Field(eq=1)

@pa.check_types
def return_zeros_or_ones(
    df: Union[DataFrame[OnlyZeroesSchema], DataFrame[OnlyOnesSchema]]
) -> Union[DataFrame[OnlyZeroesSchema], DataFrame[OnlyOnesSchema]]:
    return df

# passes
return_zeros_or_ones(pd.DataFrame({"a": [0, 0]}))
return_zeros_or_ones(pd.DataFrame({"a": [1, 1]}))

# fails
try:
    return_zeros_or_ones(pd.DataFrame({"a": [0, 2]}))
except pa.errors.SchemaErrors as exc:
    print(exc)
{
    "DATA": {
        "INVALID_TYPE": [
            {
                "schema": "OnlyOnesSchema",
                "column": "OnlyZeroesSchema",
                "check": "equal_to(0)",
                "error": "error in check_types decorator of function 'return_zeros_or_ones': Column 'a' failed element-wise validator number 0: equal_to(0) failure cases: 2"
            },
            {
                "schema": "OnlyOnesSchema",
                "column": "OnlyOnesSchema",
                "check": "equal_to(1)",
                "error": "error in check_types decorator of function 'return_zeros_or_ones': Column 'a' failed element-wise validator number 0: equal_to(1) failure cases: 0, 2"
            }
        ]
    }
}

Note that mixtures of DataFrame schemas and built-in types will ignore checking built-in types with pandera. Pydantic should be used to check and/or coerce any built-in types.

import pandas as pd
from typing import Union
import pandera as pa
from pandera.typing import DataFrame, Series

class OnlyZeroesSchema(pa.DataFrameModel):
    a: Series[int] = pa.Field(eq=0)


@pa.check_types
def df_and_int_types(

    val: Union[DataFrame[OnlyZeroesSchema], int]
) -> Union[DataFrame[OnlyZeroesSchema], int]:
    return val


df_and_int_types(pd.DataFrame({"a": [0, 0]}))
int_val = df_and_int_types(5)
str_val = df_and_int_types("5")

no_pydantic_report = f"No Pydantic: {isinstance(int_val, int)}, {isinstance(str_val, int)}"


@pa.check_types(with_pydantic=True)
def df_and_int_types_with_pydantic(
    val: Union[DataFrame[OnlyZeroesSchema], int]
) -> Union[DataFrame[OnlyZeroesSchema], int]:
    return val


df_and_int_types_with_pydantic(pd.DataFrame({"a": [0, 0]}))
int_val_w_pyd = df_and_int_types_with_pydantic(5)
str_val_w_pyd = df_and_int_types_with_pydantic("5")

pydantic_report = f"With Pydantic: {isinstance(int_val_w_pyd, int)}, {isinstance(str_val_w_pyd, int)}"

print(no_pydantic_report)
print(pydantic_report)
No Pydantic: True, False
With Pydantic: True, True

Excluded attributes

Class variables which begin with an underscore will be automatically excluded from the model. Config is also a reserved name. However, aliases can be used to circumvent these limitations.

Supported dtypes

Any dtypes supported by pandera can be used as type parameters for Series and Index. There are, however, a couple of gotchas.

Important

You can learn more about how data type validation works Data Type Validation.

Dtype aliases

import pandera as pa
from pandera.typing import Series, String

class Schema(pa.DataFrameModel):
    a: Series[String]

Type Vs instance

You must give a type, not an instance.

✅ Good:

import pandas as pd

class Schema(pa.DataFrameModel):
    a: Series[pd.StringDtype]

❌ Bad:

Note

This is only applicable for pandas versions < 2.0.0. In pandas > 2.0.0, pd.StringDtype() will produce a type.

class Schema(pa.DataFrameModel):
    a: Series[pd.StringDtype()]

Parametrized dtypes

Pandas supports a couple of parametrized dtypes. As of pandas 1.2.0:

Kind of Data

Data Type

Parameters

tz-aware datetime

DatetimeTZDtype

unit, tz

Categorical

CategoricalDtype

categories, ordered

period

PeriodDtype

freq

sparse

SparseDtype

dtype, fill_value

intervals

IntervalDtype

subtype

Annotated

Parameters can be given via typing.Annotated. It requires python >= 3.9 or typing_extensions, which is already a requirement of Pandera. Unfortunately typing.Annotated has not been backported to python 3.6.

✅ Good:

try:
    from typing import Annotated  # python 3.9+
except ImportError:
    from typing_extensions import Annotated

class Schema(pa.DataFrameModel):
    col: Series[Annotated[pd.DatetimeTZDtype, "ns", "est"]]

Furthermore, you must pass all parameters in the order defined in the dtype’s constructor (see table).

❌ Bad:

class Schema(pa.DataFrameModel):
    col: Series[Annotated[pd.DatetimeTZDtype, "utc"]]

Schema.to_schema()
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
TypeError                                 Traceback (most recent call last)
Cell In[14], line 4
      1 class Schema(pa.DataFrameModel):
      2     col: Series[Annotated[pd.DatetimeTZDtype, "utc"]]
----> 4 Schema.to_schema()

File ~/checkouts/readthedocs.org/user_builds/pandera/conda/latest/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pandera/api/dataframe/model.py:262, in DataFrameModel.to_schema(cls)
    248 if cls.__config__ is not None:
    249     kwargs = {
    250         "dtype": cls.__config__.dtype,
    251         "coerce": cls.__config__.coerce,
   (...)
    260         "drop_invalid_rows": cls.__config__.drop_invalid_rows,
    261     }
--> 262 cls.__schema__ = cls.build_schema_(**kwargs)
    263 if cls not in MODEL_CACHE:
    264     MODEL_CACHE[cls] = cls.__schema__  # type: ignore

File ~/checkouts/readthedocs.org/user_builds/pandera/conda/latest/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pandera/api/pandas/model.py:39, in DataFrameModel.build_schema_(cls, **kwargs)
     32 @classmethod
     33 def build_schema_(cls, **kwargs) -> DataFrameSchema:
     34     multiindex_kwargs = {
     35         name[len("multiindex_") :]: value
     36         for name, value in vars(cls.__config__).items()
     37         if name.startswith("multiindex_")
     38     }
---> 39     columns, index = cls._build_columns_index(
     40         cls.__fields__,
     41         cls.__checks__,
     42         cls.__parsers__,
     43         **multiindex_kwargs,
     44     )
     45     return DataFrameSchema(
     46         columns,
     47         index=index,
   (...)
     50         **kwargs,
     51     )

File ~/checkouts/readthedocs.org/user_builds/pandera/conda/latest/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pandera/api/pandas/model.py:85, in DataFrameModel._build_columns_index(cls, fields, checks, parsers, **multiindex_kwargs)
     79     if field.dtype_kwargs:
     80         raise TypeError(
     81             "Cannot specify redundant 'dtype_kwargs' "
     82             + f"for {annotation.raw_annotation}."
     83             + "\n Usage Tip: Drop 'typing.Annotated'."
     84         )
---> 85     dtype_kwargs = get_dtype_kwargs(annotation)
     86     dtype = annotation.arg(**dtype_kwargs)  # type: ignore
     87 elif annotation.default_dtype:

File ~/checkouts/readthedocs.org/user_builds/pandera/conda/latest/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pandera/api/dataframe/model.py:73, in get_dtype_kwargs(annotation)
     71 dtype_arg_names = list(sig.parameters.keys())
     72 if len(annotation.metadata) != len(dtype_arg_names):  # type: ignore
---> 73     raise TypeError(
     74         f"Annotation '{annotation.arg.__name__}' requires "  # type: ignore
     75         + f"all positional arguments {dtype_arg_names}."
     76     )
     77 return dict(zip(dtype_arg_names, annotation.metadata))

TypeError: Annotation 'DatetimeTZDtype' requires all positional arguments ['unit', 'tz'].

Field

✅ Good:

class SchemaFieldDatetimeTZDtype(pa.DataFrameModel):
    col: Series[pd.DatetimeTZDtype] = pa.Field(
        dtype_kwargs={"unit": "ns", "tz": "EST"}
    )

You cannot use both typing.Annotated and dtype_kwargs.

❌ Bad:

class SchemaFieldDatetimeTZDtype(pa.DataFrameModel):
    col: Series[Annotated[pd.DatetimeTZDtype, "ns", "est"]] = pa.Field(
        dtype_kwargs={"unit": "ns", "tz": "EST"}
    )

Schema.to_schema()
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
TypeError                                 Traceback (most recent call last)
Cell In[16], line 6
      1 class SchemaFieldDatetimeTZDtype(pa.DataFrameModel):
      2     col: Series[Annotated[pd.DatetimeTZDtype, "ns", "est"]] = pa.Field(
      3         dtype_kwargs={"unit": "ns", "tz": "EST"}
      4     )
----> 6 Schema.to_schema()

File ~/checkouts/readthedocs.org/user_builds/pandera/conda/latest/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pandera/api/dataframe/model.py:262, in DataFrameModel.to_schema(cls)
    248 if cls.__config__ is not None:
    249     kwargs = {
    250         "dtype": cls.__config__.dtype,
    251         "coerce": cls.__config__.coerce,
   (...)
    260         "drop_invalid_rows": cls.__config__.drop_invalid_rows,
    261     }
--> 262 cls.__schema__ = cls.build_schema_(**kwargs)
    263 if cls not in MODEL_CACHE:
    264     MODEL_CACHE[cls] = cls.__schema__  # type: ignore

File ~/checkouts/readthedocs.org/user_builds/pandera/conda/latest/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pandera/api/pandas/model.py:39, in DataFrameModel.build_schema_(cls, **kwargs)
     32 @classmethod
     33 def build_schema_(cls, **kwargs) -> DataFrameSchema:
     34     multiindex_kwargs = {
     35         name[len("multiindex_") :]: value
     36         for name, value in vars(cls.__config__).items()
     37         if name.startswith("multiindex_")
     38     }
---> 39     columns, index = cls._build_columns_index(
     40         cls.__fields__,
     41         cls.__checks__,
     42         cls.__parsers__,
     43         **multiindex_kwargs,
     44     )
     45     return DataFrameSchema(
     46         columns,
     47         index=index,
   (...)
     50         **kwargs,
     51     )

File ~/checkouts/readthedocs.org/user_builds/pandera/conda/latest/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pandera/api/pandas/model.py:85, in DataFrameModel._build_columns_index(cls, fields, checks, parsers, **multiindex_kwargs)
     79     if field.dtype_kwargs:
     80         raise TypeError(
     81             "Cannot specify redundant 'dtype_kwargs' "
     82             + f"for {annotation.raw_annotation}."
     83             + "\n Usage Tip: Drop 'typing.Annotated'."
     84         )
---> 85     dtype_kwargs = get_dtype_kwargs(annotation)
     86     dtype = annotation.arg(**dtype_kwargs)  # type: ignore
     87 elif annotation.default_dtype:

File ~/checkouts/readthedocs.org/user_builds/pandera/conda/latest/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pandera/api/dataframe/model.py:73, in get_dtype_kwargs(annotation)
     71 dtype_arg_names = list(sig.parameters.keys())
     72 if len(annotation.metadata) != len(dtype_arg_names):  # type: ignore
---> 73     raise TypeError(
     74         f"Annotation '{annotation.arg.__name__}' requires "  # type: ignore
     75         + f"all positional arguments {dtype_arg_names}."
     76     )
     77 return dict(zip(dtype_arg_names, annotation.metadata))

TypeError: Annotation 'DatetimeTZDtype' requires all positional arguments ['unit', 'tz'].

Required Columns

By default all columns specified in the schema are required, meaning that if a column is missing in the input DataFrame an exception will be thrown. If you want to make a column optional, annotate it with typing.Optional.

from typing import Optional

import pandas as pd
import pandera as pa
from pandera.typing import Series


class Schema(pa.DataFrameModel):
    a: Series[str]
    b: Optional[Series[int]]

df = pd.DataFrame({"a": ["2001", "2002", "2003"]})
Schema.validate(df)
a
0 2001
1 2002
2 2003

Schema Inheritance

You can also use inheritance to build schemas on top of a base schema.

class BaseSchema(pa.DataFrameModel):
    year: Series[str]

class FinalSchema(BaseSchema):
    year: Series[int] = pa.Field(ge=2000, coerce=True)  # overwrite the base type
    passengers: Series[int]
    idx: Index[int] = pa.Field(ge=0)

df = pd.DataFrame({
    "year": ["2000", "2001", "2002"],
})

@pa.check_types
def transform(df: DataFrame[BaseSchema]) -> DataFrame[FinalSchema]:
    return (
        df.assign(passengers=[61000, 50000, 45000])
        .set_index(pd.Index([1, 2, 3]))
        .astype({"year": int})
    )

transform(df)
year passengers
1 2000 61000
2 2001 50000
3 2002 45000

Config

Schema-wide options can be controlled via the Config class on the DataFrameModel subclass. The full set of options can be found in the BaseConfig class.

class Schema(pa.DataFrameModel):

    year: Series[int] = pa.Field(gt=2000, coerce=True)
    month: Series[int] = pa.Field(ge=1, le=12, coerce=True)
    day: Series[int] = pa.Field(ge=0, le=365, coerce=True)

    class Config:
        name = "BaseSchema"
        strict = True
        coerce = True
        foo = "bar"  # Interpreted as dataframe check
        baz = ...    # Interpreted as a dataframe check with no additional arguments

It is not required for the Config to subclass BaseConfig but it must be named ‘Config’.

See Registered Custom Checks with the Class-based API for details on using registered dataframe checks.

MultiIndex

The MultiIndex capabilities are also supported with the class-based API:

import pandera as pa
from pandera.typing import Index, Series

class MultiIndexSchema(pa.DataFrameModel):

    year: Index[int] = pa.Field(gt=2000, coerce=True)
    month: Index[int] = pa.Field(ge=1, le=12, coerce=True)
    passengers: Series[int]

    class Config:
        # provide multi index options in the config
        multiindex_name = "time"
        multiindex_strict = True
        multiindex_coerce = True

index = MultiIndexSchema.to_schema().index
print(index)
<Schema MultiIndex(
    indexes=[
        <Schema Index(name=year, type=DataType(int64))>
        <Schema Index(name=month, type=DataType(int64))>
    ]
    coerce=True,
    strict=True,
    name=time,
    ordered=True
)>
from pprint import pprint

pprint({name: col.checks for name, col in index.columns.items()})
{'month': [<Check greater_than_or_equal_to: greater_than_or_equal_to(1)>,
           <Check less_than_or_equal_to: less_than_or_equal_to(12)>],
 'year': [<Check greater_than: greater_than(2000)>]}

Multiple Index annotations are automatically converted into a MultiIndex. MultiIndex options are given in the Config.

Index Name

Use check_name to validate the index name of a single-index dataframe:

import pandas as pd
import pandera as pa
from pandera.typing import Index, Series

class Schema(pa.DataFrameModel):
    year: Series[int] = pa.Field(gt=2000, coerce=True)
    passengers: Series[int]
    idx: Index[int] = pa.Field(ge=0, check_name=True)

df = pd.DataFrame({
    "year": [2001, 2002, 2003],
    "passengers": [61000, 50000, 45000],
})

try:
    Schema.validate(df)
except pa.errors.SchemaError as exc:
    print(exc)
Expected <class 'pandas.core.series.Series'> to have name 'idx', found 'None'

check_name default value of None translates to True for columns and multi-index.

Custom Checks

Unlike the object-based API, custom checks can be specified as class methods.

Column/Index checks

import pandera as pa
from pandera.typing import Index, Series

class CustomCheckSchema(pa.DataFrameModel):

    a: Series[int] = pa.Field(gt=0, coerce=True)
    abc: Series[int]
    idx: Index[str]

    @pa.check("a", name="foobar")
    def custom_check(cls, a: Series[int]) -> Series[bool]:
        return a < 100

    @pa.check("^a", regex=True, name="foobar")
    def custom_check_regex(cls, a: Series[int]) -> Series[bool]:
        return a > 0

    @pa.check("idx")
    def check_idx(cls, idx: Index[int]) -> Series[bool]:
        return idx.str.contains("dog")

Note

  • You can supply the key-word arguments of the Check class initializer to get the flexibility of groupby checks

  • Similarly to pydantic, classmethod() decorator is added behind the scenes if omitted.

  • You still may need to add the @classmethod decorator after the check() decorator if your static-type checker or linter complains.

  • Since checks are class methods, the first argument value they receive is a DataFrameModel subclass, not an instance of a model.

from typing import Dict

class GroupbyCheckSchema(pa.DataFrameModel):

    value: Series[int] = pa.Field(gt=0, coerce=True)
    group: Series[str] = pa.Field(isin=["A", "B"])

    @pa.check("value", groupby="group", regex=True, name="check_means")
    def check_groupby(cls, grouped_value: Dict[str, Series[int]]) -> bool:
        return grouped_value["A"].mean() < grouped_value["B"].mean()

df = pd.DataFrame({
    "value": [100, 110, 120, 10, 11, 12],
    "group": list("AAABBB"),
})

try:
    print(GroupbyCheckSchema.validate(df))
except pa.errors.SchemaError as exc:
    print(exc)
Column 'value' failed series or dataframe validator 1: <Check check_means>

DataFrame Checks

You can also define dataframe-level checks, similar to the object-based API, using the dataframe_check() decorator:

import pandas as pd
import pandera as pa
from pandera.typing import Index, Series

class DataFrameCheckSchema(pa.DataFrameModel):

    col1: Series[int] = pa.Field(gt=0, coerce=True)
    col2: Series[float] = pa.Field(gt=0, coerce=True)
    col3: Series[float] = pa.Field(lt=0, coerce=True)

    @pa.dataframe_check
    def product_is_negative(cls, df: pd.DataFrame) -> Series[bool]:
        return df["col1"] * df["col2"] * df["col3"] < 0

df = pd.DataFrame({
    "col1": [1, 2, 3],
    "col2": [5, 6, 7],
    "col3": [-1, -2, -3],
})

DataFrameCheckSchema.validate(df)
col1 col2 col3
0 1 5.0 -1.0
1 2 6.0 -2.0
2 3 7.0 -3.0

Inheritance

The custom checks are inherited and therefore can be overwritten by the subclass.

import pandas as pd
import pandera as pa
from pandera.typing import Index, Series

class Parent(pa.DataFrameModel):

    a: Series[int] = pa.Field(coerce=True)

    @pa.check("a", name="foobar")
    def check_a(cls, a: Series[int]) -> Series[bool]:
        return a < 100


class Child(Parent):

    a: Series[int] = pa.Field(coerce=False)

    @pa.check("a", name="foobar")
    def check_a(cls, a: Series[int]) -> Series[bool]:
        return a > 100

is_a_coerce = Child.to_schema().columns["a"].coerce
print(f"coerce: {is_a_coerce}")
coerce: False
df = pd.DataFrame({"a": [1, 2, 3]})

try:
    Child.validate(df)
except pa.errors.SchemaError as exc:
    print(exc)
Column 'a' failed element-wise validator number 0: <Check foobar> failure cases: 1, 2, 3

Aliases

DataFrameModel supports columns which are not valid python variable names via the argument alias of Field.

Checks must reference the aliased names.

import pandera as pa
import pandas as pd

class Schema(pa.DataFrameModel):
    col_2020: pa.typing.Series[int] = pa.Field(alias=2020)
    idx: pa.typing.Index[int] = pa.Field(alias="_idx", check_name=True)

    @pa.check(2020)
    def int_column_lt_100(cls, series):
        return series < 100


df = pd.DataFrame({2020: [99]}, index=[0])
df.index.name = "_idx"

print(Schema.validate(df))
      2020
_idx      
0       99

(New in 0.6.2) The alias is respected when using the class attribute to get the underlying pd.DataFrame column name or index level name.

print(Schema.col_2020)
2020

Very similar to the example above, you can also use the variable name directly within the class scope, and it will respect the alias.

Note

To access a variable from the class scope, you need to make it a class attribute, and therefore assign it a default Field.

import pandera as pa
import pandas as pd

class Schema(pa.DataFrameModel):
    a: pa.typing.Series[int] = pa.Field()
    col_2020: pa.typing.Series[int] = pa.Field(alias=2020)

    @pa.check(col_2020)
    def int_column_lt_100(cls, series):
        return series < 100

    @pa.check(a)
    def int_column_gt_100(cls, series):
        return series > 100


df = pd.DataFrame({2020: [99], "a": [101]})
print(Schema.validate(df))
   2020    a
0    99  101

Manipulating DataFrame Models post-definition

One caveat of using inheritance to build schemas on top of each other is that there is no clear way of how a child class can e.g. remove fields or update them without completely overriding previous settings. This is because inheritance is strictly additive.

DataFrameSchema objects do have these options though, as described in DataFrameSchema Transformations, which you can leverage by overriding your DataFrame Model’s to_schema() method.

DataFrame Models are for the most part just a proxy for the DataFrameSchema API; calling validate() will just redirect to the validate method of the Data Frame Schema’s validate returned by to_schema. As such, any updates to the schema that took place in there will propagate cleanly.

As an example, the following class hierarchy can not remove the fields b and c from Baz into a base-class without completely convoluting the inheritance tree. So, we can get rid of them like this:

import pandera as pa
import pandas as pd

class Foo(pa.DataFrameModel):
    a: pa.typing.Series[int]
    b: pa.typing.Series[int]

class Bar(pa.DataFrameModel):
    c: pa.typing.Series[int]
    d: pa.typing.Series[int]

class Baz(Foo, Bar):

    @classmethod
    def to_schema(cls) -> pa.DataFrameSchema:
        schema = super().to_schema()
        return schema.remove_columns(["b", "c"])

df = pd.DataFrame({"a": [99], "d": [101]})
print(Baz.validate(df))
    a    d
0  99  101

Note

There are drawbacks to manipulating schema shape in this way:

  • Static code analysis has no way to figure out what fields have been removed/updated from the class definitions and inheritance hierarchy.

  • Any children of classes which have overriden to_schema might experience surprising behavior – if a child of Baz tries to define a field b or c again, it will lose it in its to_schema call because Baz’s to_schema will always be executed after any child’s class body has already been fully assembled.