pandas.DataFrame.head — pandas 3.0.0.dev0+2095.g2e141aaf99 documentation (original) (raw)

DataFrame.head(n=5)[source]#

Return the first n rows.

This function exhibits the same behavior as df[:n], returning the first n rows based on position. It is useful for quickly checking if your object has the right type of data in it.

When n is positive, it returns the first n rows. For n equal to 0, it returns an empty object. When n is negative, it returns all rows except the last |n| rows, mirroring the behavior of df[:n].

If n is larger than the number of rows, this function returns all rows.

Parameters:

nint, default 5

Number of rows to select.

Returns:

same type as caller

The first n rows of the caller object.

Examples

df = pd.DataFrame( ... { ... "animal": [ ... "alligator", ... "bee", ... "falcon", ... "lion", ... "monkey", ... "parrot", ... "shark", ... "whale", ... "zebra", ... ] ... } ... ) df animal 0 alligator 1 bee 2 falcon 3 lion 4 monkey 5 parrot 6 shark 7 whale 8 zebra

Viewing the first 5 lines

df.head() animal 0 alligator 1 bee 2 falcon 3 lion 4 monkey

Viewing the first n lines (three in this case)

df.head(3) animal 0 alligator 1 bee 2 falcon

For negative values of n

df.head(-3) animal 0 alligator 1 bee 2 falcon 3 lion 4 monkey 5 parrot