Glossary

Programming Fundamentals

Variable – A named location used to store data in memory.
Function – A reusable block of code designed to perform a specific task.
Loop – A control flow structure that repeats a block of code (for, while).
Conditional Statement – A logical structure used for decision-making in code (if, else).
Boolean – A data type with two values: True or False.

Data Structures

List – A mutable, ordered collection of items in Python.
Tuple – An immutable, ordered collection of items.
Dictionary – An unordered, mutable collection of key-value pairs.
Set – An unordered collection of unique items.
Array – A sequence of elements stored in a contiguous memory location (used in NumPy).

Data Analysis

DataFrame – A two-dimensional, tabular data structure in pandas with labeled axes (rows and columns).
Series – A one-dimensional array-like object in pandas.
Index – Labels for accessing rows or columns in a pandas object.
Missing Data – Data entries with null or undefined values, often represented by NaN.

File Formats

CSV (Comma-Separated Values) – A simple text format for tabular data.
Excel (.xlsx) – A spreadsheet file format used widely for data storage.
JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) – A structured, human-readable format used for data interchange.
Pickle – A Python-specific format used for serializing and saving Python objects.

Data Cleaning

Null Values – Empty or missing data entries in a dataset.
Outliers – Data points that differ significantly from other observations.
Data Type Conversion – Changing a column’s data type (e.g., string to integer).
Normalization – Scaling numeric data to a common range.

Visualization

Matplotlib – A low-level library for creating static plots.
Seaborn – A high-level interface for drawing attractive statistical graphics.
Plotly – A library for interactive visualizations.
Bar Chart – A chart that uses bars to show frequencies or counts.
Scatter Plot – A graph that uses dots to show values for two variables.