This is a series of ipython notebooks for analyzing Big Data -- specifically Twitter data -- using Python's powerful PANDAS (Python Data Analysis) library.
For these tutorials I am assuming you have already downloaded some data and are now ready to begin examining it. In the first notebook I will show you how to set up your ipython working environment and import the Twitter data we have downloaded. If you are new to Python, you may wish to go through a series of tutorials I have created in order.
If you want to skip the data download and just use the sample data, but don't yet have Python set up on your computer, you may wish to go through the tutorial "Setting up Your Computer to Use My Python Code".
Also note that we are using the iPython notebook interactive computing framework for running the code in this tutorial. If you're unfamiliar with this see this tutorial "Four Ways to Run your Code".
For a more general set of PANDAS notebook tutorials, I'd recommend this cookbook by Julia Evans. I also have a growing list of "recipes" that contains frequently used PANDAS commands.
##Prerequisites As you may know from my other tutorials, I am a big fan of the free Anaconda version of Python 2.7. It contains all of the prerequisites you need and will save you a lot of headaches getting your system set up. Once it's all installed open up a terminal and run the following:
git clone https://github.com/gdsaxton/PANDAS.git
cd PANDAS
ipython notebook
A tab containing links to all of the available chapters will open up in your browser at http://localhost:8888
Sample data for use in Chapter 1 can be found in the data folder.
I hope you find these tutorials helpful; please acknowledge the source in your own research papers if you’ve found them useful:
Saxton, Gregory D. (2015). Analyzing Big Data with Python. Buffalo, NY: http://social-metrics.org
Also, please share and spread the word to help build a vibrant community of PANDAS users.
Happy coding!