# Converting NamedTuple to DataFrame seems expensive?
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/converting-namedtuple-to-dataframe-seems-expensive/38674
**Category:** New to Julia
**Created:** [May 3, 2020, 2:30pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/converting-namedtuple-to-dataframe-seems-expensive/38674 "2020-05-03T14:30:10Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@xiaodai](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/xiaodai)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2020, 2:30pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/converting-namedtuple-to-dataframe-seems-expensive/38674/1 "2020-05-03T14:30:10Z")
I have a huge NamedTuple and
`DataFrame(larged_namedtuple)`
takes a long time like 12s and uses quite a bit of RAM
The eventual target for me is a DataFrame but I created the named tuple so that users can choose the sink they want. Is it better to not create the named tuple and just create the DataFrame? That would force a dependency on DataFrame on a package that I am only a potential contributor to, so if it can be avoided would be good.
Any good solutions?
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### Author:  [@pdeffebach](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/pdeffebach)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2020, 3:01pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/converting-namedtuple-to-dataframe-seems-expensive/38674/2 "2020-05-03T15:01:09Z")
Use `copycols = false` in the `DataFrame` constructor.
If you can avoid a dependency on data frames that would be best.
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### Author:  [@davidanthoff](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/davidanthoff)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2020, 4:22pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/converting-namedtuple-to-dataframe-seems-expensive/38674/3 "2020-05-03T16:22:19Z")
Huge in what sense? Many columns?
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### Author:  [@xiaodai](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/xiaodai)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2020, 4:29pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/converting-namedtuple-to-dataframe-seems-expensive/38674/4 "2020-05-03T16:29:24Z")
100s col 26m rows
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### Author:  [@xiaodai](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/xiaodai)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2020, 4:30pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/converting-namedtuple-to-dataframe-seems-expensive/38674/5 "2020-05-03T16:30:54Z")
> [@pdeffebach](#):
>
> Use `copycols = false` in the `DataFrame` constructor.
Does it make the dataframe immutable?
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### Author:  [@pdeffebach](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/pdeffebach)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2020, 4:38pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/converting-namedtuple-to-dataframe-seems-expensive/38674/6 "2020-05-03T16:38:24Z")
As far as I can tell, no. I think the issue you are thinking of is `CSV.read` which used to return an immutable `AbstractArray` type that would cause problems with `copycols = false`.
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### Author:  [@davidanthoff](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/davidanthoff)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2020, 4:58pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/converting-namedtuple-to-dataframe-seems-expensive/38674/7 "2020-05-03T16:58:01Z")
@xiaodai, it is a lot easier to help you if you provide more concrete information. Are you passing one named tuple with 100s fields and each field is a vector with one element per row? Or are you passing a vector of named tuples? Or an iterator of named tuples?
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### Author:  [@xiaodai](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/xiaodai)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2020, 11:44pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/converting-namedtuple-to-dataframe-seems-expensive/38674/8 "2020-05-03T23:44:49Z")
> [@davidanthoff](#):
>
> is a lot easier to help you if you provide more concrete information
Firstly, I create 100s of vectors using the multi-threading, so I have a (unamed) tuple of 100s of materialized vectors.
Then I create names for them using namedtuple. Come to think of it, I can just create DataFrame from tuple. And then give them names so I can skip the name tuple dependency.