Utilities

py_stringsimjoin.utils.converter.dataframe_column_to_str(dataframe, col_name, inplace=False, return_col=False)

Convert columun in the dataframe into string type while preserving NaN values.

This method is useful when performing join over numeric columns. Currently, the join methods expect the join columns to be of string type. Hence, the numeric columns need to be converted to string type before performing the join.

Parameters

• dataframe (DataFrame) – Input pandas dataframe.

• col_name (string) – Name of the column in the dataframe to be converted.

• inplace (boolean) – A flag indicating whether the input dataframe should be modified inplace or in a copy of it.

• return_col (boolean) – A flag indicating whether a copy of the converted column should be returned. When this flag is set to True, the method will not modify the original dataframe and will return a new column of string type. Only one of inplace and return_col can be set to True.

Returns

A Boolean value when inplace is set to True.

A new dataframe when inplace is set to False and return_col is set to False.

A series when inplace is set to False and return_col is set to True.

py_stringsimjoin.utils.converter.series_to_str(series, inplace=False)

Convert series into string type while preserving NaN values.

Parameters

• series (Series) – Input pandas series.

• inplace (boolean) – A flag indicating whether the input series should be modified inplace or in a copy of it. This flag is ignored when the input series consists of only NaN values or the series is empty (with int or float type). In these two cases, we always return a copy irrespective of the inplace flag.

Returns

A Boolean value when inplace is set to True.

A series when inplace is set to False.