Numerical Computing with Python

Index Alignment

When multiple Series or DataFrames are combined in some way, each dimension of the data automatically aligns on each axis first before any computation happens. This silent and automatic alignment of axes can cause tremendous confusion for the uninitiated, but it gives great flexibility to the power user. This chapter explores the Index object in-depth before showcasing a variety of recipes that take advantage of its automatic alignment.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• Examining the Index object
• Producing Cartesian products
• Exploding indexes
• Filling values with unequal indexes
• Appending columns from different DataFrames
• Highlighting the maximum value from each column
• Replicating idxmax with method chaining ...