How can I open an Excel file in Python?

Question

I know how to open textfiles, but I don't know how to open an excel file. Can anyone help me to sort out my doubt?

Answer 1

New Version

Try the following code in the case of new version of python.

file_name =  # path to file + file name

sheet =  # sheet name or sheet number or list of sheet numbers and names

import pandas as pd

df = pd.read_excel(io=file_name, sheet_name=sheet)

print(df.head(5))  # print first 5 rows of the dataframe

You can also pass name of the sheet as parameter.

Older version:

You can use the following code, when you're working with multiple sheets in an excel file.

import pandas as pd

xl = pd.ExcelFile(path + filename)

xl.sheet_names

>>> [u'Sheet1', u'Sheet2', u'Sheet3']

df = xl.parse("Sheet1")

df.head()

whereas, df.head() will return the first 5 records of the excel sheet.

Incase, if you're working with a single sheet:

import pandas as pd

df = pd.read_excel(path + filename)

print df.head()

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