datatable.fread()

datatable.
fread
(
anysource=None
,
*
,
file=None
,
text=None
,
cmd=None
,
url=None
,
columns=None
,
sep=None
,
dec="."
,
max_nrows=None
,
header=None
,
na_strings=None
,
verbose=False
,
fill=False
,
encoding=None
,
skip_to_string=None
,
skip_to_line=0
,
skip_blank_lines=False
,
strip_whitespace=True
,
quotechar='"'
,
tempdir=None
,
nthreads=None
,
logger=None
,
multiple_sources="warn"
,
memory_limit=None
)
source

This function is capable of reading data from a variety of input formats, producing a Frame as the result. The recognized formats are: CSV, Jay, XLSX, and plain text. In addition, the data may be inside an archive such as .tar, .gz, .zip, .gz2, and .tgz.

Parameters

anysource
str | bytes | file | Pathlike | List

The first (unnamed) argument to fread is the input source. Multiple types of sources are supported, and they can be named explicitly: file, text, cmd, and url. When the source is not named, fread will attempt to guess its type. The most common type is file, but sometimes the argument is resolved as text (if the string contains newlines) or url (if the string starts with https:// or similar).

Only one argument out of anysource, file, text, cmd or url can be specified at once.

file
str | file | Pathlike

A file source can be either the name of the file on disk, or a python “file-like” object – i.e. any object having method .read().

Generally, specifying a file name should be preferred, since reading from a Python file can only be done in single-threaded mode.

This argument also supports addressing files inside an archive, or sheets inside an Excel workbook. Simply write the name of the file as if the archive was a folder: "data.zip/train.csv".

text
str | bytes

Instead of reading data from file, this argument provides the data as a simple in-memory blob.

cmd
str

A command that will be executed in the shell and its output then read as text.

url
str

This parameter can be used to specify the URL of the input file. The data will first be downloaded into a temporary directory and then read from there. In the end the temporary files will be removed.

We use the standard urllib.request module to download the data. Changing the settings of that module, for example installing proxy, password, or cookie managers will allow you to customize the download process.

columns
...

Limit which columns to read from the input file.

sep
str | None

Field separator in the input file. If this value is None (default) then the separator will be auto-detected. Otherwise it must be a single-character string. When sep='\n', then the data will be read in single-column mode. Characters ["'`0-9a-zA-Z] are not allowed as the separator, as well as any non-ASCII characters.

dec
"." | ","

Decimal point symbol for floating-point numbers.

max_nrows
int

The maximum number of rows to read from the file. Setting this parameter to any negative number is equivalent to have no limit at all. Currently this parameter doesn’t always work correctly.

na_strings
List[str]

The list of strings that were used in the input file to represent NA values.

fill
bool

If True then the lines of the CSV file are allowed to have uneven number of fields. All missing fields will be filled with NAs in the resulting frame.

encoding
str | None

If this parameter is provided, then the input will be recoded from this encoding into UTF-8 before reading. Any encoding registered with the python codec module can be used.

skip_to_string
str | None

Start reading the file from the line containing this string. All previous lines will be skipped and discarded. This parameter cannot be used together with skip_to_line.

skip_to_line
int

If this setting is given, then this many lines in the file will be skipped before we start to parse the file. This can be used for example when several first lines in the file contain non-CSV data and therefore must be skipped. This parameter cannot be used together with skip_to_string.

skip_blank_lines
bool

If True then any empty lines in the input will be skipped. If this parameter is False then: (a) in single-column mode empty lines are kept as empty lines; otherwise (b) if fill=True then empty lines produce a single line filled with NAs in the output; otherwise (c) an IOError is raised.

strip_whitespace
bool

If True, then the leading/trailing whitespace will be stripped from unquoted string fields. Whitespace is always skipped from numeric fields.

quotechar
'"' | "'" | "`"

The character that was used to quote fields in the CSV file. By default the double-quote mark '"' is assumed.

tempdir
str | None

Use this directory for storing temporary files as needed. If not provided then the system temporary directory will be used, as determined via the tempfile Python module.

nthreads
int | None

Number of threads to use when reading the file. This number cannot exceed the number of threads in the pool dt.options.nthreads. If 0 or negative number of threads is requested, then it will be treated as that many threads less than the maximum. By default all threads in the thread pool are used.

verbose
bool

If True, then print detailed information about the internal workings of fread to stdout (or to logger if provided).

logger
object

Logger object that will receive verbose information about fread’s progress. When this parameter is specified, verbose mode will be turned on automatically.

multiple_sources
"warn" | "error" | "ignore"

Action that should be taken when the input resolves to multiple distinct sources. By default ("warn") a warning will be issued and only the first source will be read and returned as a Frame. The "ignore" action is similar, except that the extra sources will be discarded without a warning. Lastly, an IOError can be raised if the value of this parameter is "error".

If you want all sources to be read instead of only the first one then consider using iread().

memory_limit
int

Try not to exceed this amount of memory allocation (in bytes) when reading the data. This limit is advisory and not enforced very strictly.

This setting is useful when reading data from a file that is substantially larger than the amount of RAM available on your machine.

When this parameter is specified and fread sees that it needs more RAM than the limit in order to read the input file, then it will dump the data that was read so far into a temporary file in binary format. In the end the returned Frame will be partially composed from data located on disk, and partially from the data in memory. It is advised to either store this data as a Jay file or filter and materialize the frame (if not the performance may be slow).

return
Frame

A single Frame object is always returned.

Changed in version 0.11.0: Previously a dict of Frames was returned when multiple input sources were provided.

except
IOError

See Also