# Convert dataframe to runnable Julia code?

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/convert-dataframe-to-runnable-julia-code/48971>\
**Category:** New to Julia\
**Tags:** dataframes\
**Created:** [October 25, 2020, 9:47am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/convert-dataframe-to-runnable-julia-code/48971 "2020-10-25T09:47:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 17\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![StatisticalMouse](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/statisticalmouse/32/43370_2.png) [@StatisticalMouse](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/StatisticalMouse)\
**Post date:** [October 25, 2020, 9:47am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/convert-dataframe-to-runnable-julia-code/48971/1 "2020-10-25T09:47:43Z")

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How would I convert a dataframe to Julia code? I have a dataframe containing these in a notebook, and I want Julia code that when run, produces a dataframe with the same contents.

```julia
10 rows × 12 columns

PassengerId	Survived	Pclass	Name	Sex	Age	SibSp	Parch	Ticket	Fare	Cabin	Embarked
Int64	Int64	Int64	String	String	Float64?	Int64	Int64	String	Float64	String?	String?
1	30	0	3	Todoroff, Mr. Lalio	male	missing	0	0	349216	7.8958	missing	S
2	205	1	3	Cohen, Mr. Gurshon "Gus"	male	18.0	0	0	A/5 3540	8.05	missing	S

```

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**Author:** ![nilshg](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/nilshg/32/2283_2.png) [@nilshg](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/nilshg)\
**Post date:** [October 25, 2020, 9:51am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/convert-dataframe-to-runnable-julia-code/48971/2 "2020-10-25T09:51:12Z")

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Sorry I’m not sure I understand the question - how did you create this DataFrame in the first place?

If you’ve got the DataFrame in a notebook you can just `using CSV; CSV.write("mydata.csv", df)` and then another file which does `using CSV, DataFrames; CSV.read("mydata.csv", DataFrame)` will give you the same DataFrame back.

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**Author:** ![StatisticalMouse](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/statisticalmouse/32/43370_2.png) [@StatisticalMouse](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/StatisticalMouse)\
**Post date:** [October 25, 2020, 10:02am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/convert-dataframe-to-runnable-julia-code/48971/3 "2020-10-25T10:02:35Z")

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The DataFrame was obtained using CSV.read().

The thing is, I can easily re-create it any time, but doing that requires, well, reading a CSV. I want something that is just Julia code, no external files.

An external file makes some things more difficult. For instance asking a question about code is hard because I can’t post an external file alongside the code in the forums.

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**Author:** ![StatisticalMouse](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/statisticalmouse/32/43370_2.png) [@StatisticalMouse](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/StatisticalMouse)\
**Post date:** [October 25, 2020, 10:09am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/convert-dataframe-to-runnable-julia-code/48971/4 "2020-10-25T10:09:40Z")

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Blindly copy-pasting lines from the original CSV to a string, and then reading it as CSV afterward doesn’t work as the following is not a valid string.

```julia
thecsv = """
PassengerId,Survived,Pclass,Name,Sex,Age,SibSp,Parch,Ticket,Fare,Cabin,Embarked
30,0,3,"Todoroff, Mr. Lalio",male,,0,0,349216,7.8958,,S
205,1,3,"Cohen, Mr. Gurshon ""Gus""",male,18,0,0,A/5 3540,8.05,,S
"""

```

In any case, it is a lot more work to do it manually.

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**Author:** ![StatisticalMouse](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/statisticalmouse/32/43370_2.png) [@StatisticalMouse](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/StatisticalMouse)\
**Post date:** [October 25, 2020, 10:17am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/convert-dataframe-to-runnable-julia-code/48971/5 "2020-10-25T10:17:38Z")

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In R I would use dump(), which produces a file of R code you can run to produce the original object, but Julia’s dump() does a different thing.

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**Author:** ![tomerarnon](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/tomerarnon/32/3170_2.png) [@tomerarnon](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/tomerarnon)\
**Post date:** [October 25, 2020, 10:25am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/convert-dataframe-to-runnable-julia-code/48971/6 "2020-10-25T10:25:22Z")

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If you just want it to be pastable so you can post it on forums and the like, you could print it in a copy-paste-friendly form. Here is one way to do that:

```julia
function to_pastable(df)
    print("DataFrame(")
    for n in names(df)
        print(n, " = ", df[!, n], ", ")
    end
    print(")")
end

```

The above will only work for types that print the same as they “are”. If the dataframe contains types with overloaded `show` methods, this won’t work.

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**Author:** ![StatisticalMouse](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/statisticalmouse/32/43370_2.png) [@StatisticalMouse](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/StatisticalMouse)\
**Post date:** [October 25, 2020, 10:34am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/convert-dataframe-to-runnable-julia-code/48971/7 "2020-10-25T10:34:08Z")

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That does work for the data I have, so it’s a solution, but in general it’s not that great to have code that works ‘most of the time’.

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**Author:** ![Tamas\_Papp](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/tamas_papp/32/25949_2.png) [@Tamas\_Papp](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Tamas_Papp)\
**Post date:** [October 25, 2020, 12:38pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/convert-dataframe-to-runnable-julia-code/48971/8 "2020-10-25T12:38:55Z")

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I would just dump it into a CSV format as a string, and read that back. Eg

```julia
using CSV, DataFrames
df = DataFrame(a = 1:5, b = 6:10)

# write
CSV.write(stdout, df) # copy-paste the output between """s below

# read
table = """
a,b
1,6
2,7
3,8
4,9
5,10
"""
df2 = DataFrame(CSV.File(IOBuffer(table)))

```

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**Author:** ![StatisticalMouse](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/statisticalmouse/32/43370_2.png) [@StatisticalMouse](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/StatisticalMouse)\
**Post date:** [October 25, 2020, 12:55pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/convert-dataframe-to-runnable-julia-code/48971/9 "2020-10-25T12:55:49Z")

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That doesn’t work. The output is

```julia

PassengerId,Survived,Pclass,Name,Sex,Age,SibSp,Parch,Ticket,Fare,Cabin,Embarked
104,0,3,"Johansson, Mr. Gustaf Joel",male,33.0,0,0,7540,8.6542,,S
117,0,3,"Connors, Mr. Patrick",male,70.5,0,0,370369,7.75,,Q
469,0,3,"Scanlan, Mr. James",male,,0,0,36209,7.725,,Q
631,1,1,"Barkworth, Mr. Algernon Henry Wilson",male,80.0,0,0,27042,30.0,A23,S
645,1,3,"Baclini, Miss. Eugenie",female,0.75,2,1,2666,19.2583,,C
655,0,3,"Hegarty, Miss. Hanora ""Nora""",female,18.0,0,0,365226,6.75,,Q
664,0,3,"Coleff, Mr. Peju",male,36.0,0,0,349210,7.4958,,S
672,0,1,"Davidson, Mr. Thornton",male,31.0,1,0,F.C. 12750,52.0,B71,S
779,0,3,"Kilgannon, Mr. Thomas J",male,,0,0,36865,7.7375,,Q
796,0,2,"Otter, Mr. Richard",male,39.0,0,0,28213,13.0,,S
[6]:
IJulia.IJuliaStdio{Base.PipeEndpoint}(IOContext(Base.PipeEndpoint(RawFD(0x0000002c) open, 0 bytes waiting)))

```

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**Author:** ![Tamas\_Papp](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/tamas_papp/32/25949_2.png) [@Tamas\_Papp](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Tamas_Papp)\
**Post date:** [October 25, 2020, 1:14pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/convert-dataframe-to-runnable-julia-code/48971/10 "2020-10-25T13:14:08Z")

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If you insist on double (which become triple) quotes for `"Hegarty, Miss. Hanora ""Nora"""`, you need to escape them in the string.

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**Author:** ![StatisticalMouse](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/statisticalmouse/32/43370_2.png) [@StatisticalMouse](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/StatisticalMouse)\
**Post date:** [October 25, 2020, 1:15pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/convert-dataframe-to-runnable-julia-code/48971/11 "2020-10-25T13:15:59Z")

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I don’t want to manually edit the contents. Sorry.

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**Author:** ![Tamas\_Papp](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/tamas_papp/32/25949_2.png) [@Tamas\_Papp](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Tamas_Papp)\
**Post date:** [October 25, 2020, 1:23pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/convert-dataframe-to-runnable-julia-code/48971/12 "2020-10-25T13:23:09Z")

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Why would you need to edit it manually? Use something like

```julia
let io = IOBuffer()
    CSV.write(io, df)
    Base.print_quoted(stdout, String(take!(io)))
end

```

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**Author:** ![pdeffebach](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/pdeffebach/32/10320_2.png) [@pdeffebach](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/pdeffebach)\
**Post date:** [October 25, 2020, 1:52pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/convert-dataframe-to-runnable-julia-code/48971/13 "2020-10-25T13:52:26Z")

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To add on to what @Tamas_Papp wrote,

I do CSV.write(df) in the REPL

```julia
 julia> df = DataFrame(a = [1, 2, 3], b = ["x", "y", "z"])

julia> CSV.write(stdout, df)
a,b
1,x
2,y
3,z
Base.TTY(RawFD(0x0000000d) open, 0 bytes waiting)

```

Then I copy and paste that into a multiline string

```julia
s = """
a,b
1,x
2,y
3,z
"""

CSV.read(IOBuffer(s), DataFrame)

```

This is pretty inelegant, i agree. But it’s feasible nonetheless.

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**Author:** ![Tamas\_Papp](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/tamas_papp/32/25949_2.png) [@Tamas\_Papp](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Tamas_Papp)\
**Post date:** [October 25, 2020, 1:58pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/convert-dataframe-to-runnable-julia-code/48971/14 "2020-10-25T13:58:08Z")

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Alternatively, a `Vector` of `NamedTuples` could also work fine and require no parsing.

```julia
julia> print(map(NamedTuple, Tables.rows(df)))
NamedTuple{(:a, :b),Tuple{Int64,String}}[(a = 1, b = "x"), (a = 2, b = "y"), (a = 3, b = "z")]

data = [(a = 1, b = "x"), (a = 2, b = "y"), (a = 3, b = "z")]
DataFrame(data)

```

etc.

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**Author:** ![StatisticalMouse](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/statisticalmouse/32/43370_2.png) [@StatisticalMouse](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/StatisticalMouse)\
**Post date:** [October 25, 2020, 1:58pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/convert-dataframe-to-runnable-julia-code/48971/15 "2020-10-25T13:58:25Z")

</div>

This (IOBuffer) works, and I can make a string variable with it. The reason I couldn’t do that is that I’ve done Julia for one week. I looked at the documentation of CSV, and I couldn’t figure out how to make it read from a string, it wants a file.

Also, to\_pastable(df) works.

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**Author:** ![nilshg](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/nilshg/32/2283_2.png) [@nilshg](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/nilshg)\
**Post date:** [October 25, 2020, 2:01pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/convert-dataframe-to-runnable-julia-code/48971/16 "2020-10-25T14:01:26Z")

</div>

Maybe my SO answer here is helpful: [How to provide reproducible Sample Data in Julia - Stack Overflow](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/61723347/how-to-provide-reproducible-sample-data-in-julia)

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**Author:** ![StatisticalMouse](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/statisticalmouse/32/43370_2.png) [@StatisticalMouse](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/StatisticalMouse)\
**Post date:** [October 25, 2020, 2:14pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/convert-dataframe-to-runnable-julia-code/48971/17 "2020-10-25T14:14:11Z")

</div>

This StackOverflow solution seems to be the shortest one that works, so arguably it’s the best one.