Data model

expdpy follows ExPanDaR’s panel-data model.

Identifiers

  • cs_id — one or more columns identifying the cross-section (e.g. country + ISO code).
  • ts_id — a single column identifying the time dimension, coercible to an ordered factor (e.g. fiscal year).

Provide them directly, or via a df_def table:

column meaning
var_name the column name
var_def a human description (or, for var_def tables, an expression)
type one of cs_id, ts_id, factor, logical, numeric
can_be_na optional; if False, rows missing this variable are dropped
from expdpy.data import load_kuznets_data_def
load_kuznets_data_def()  # cs_id (country, iso), ts_id (year), factors and numerics

Variable categories

Inside the app, columns are classified for the selectors: a factor is categorical/object or a numeric column with at most factor_cutoff (default 10) distinct values; a two-level column has exactly two values; the rest are numeric or logical.

Time-axis conversion

The time-trend functions coerce ts_id for nicer ticks: full date strings become dates, numeric-looking values (including factor years like "2013") become numbers, and anything else becomes an ordered categorical — matching ExPanDaR’s try_convert_ts_id.