Return data to the sheet

Return the data from your Python code to the spreadsheet.

Quadratic is built to seamlessly integrate Python to the spreadsheet. This means being able to manipulate data in code and very simply output that data into the sheet.

By default, the last line of code is output to the spreadsheet. This should be one of the four basic types:

1. Single value: for displaying the single number result of a computation

2. List of values: for displaying a list of values from a computation

3. DataFrame: for displaying the workhorse data type of Quadratic

4. Chart: for displaying Plotly charts in Quadratic

5. Function outputs: return the results of functions to the sheet

You can expect to primarily use DataFrames as Quadratic is heavily built around Pandas DataFrames due to widespread Pandas adoption in almost all data science communities!

1. Single Value

Note the simplest possible example, where we set x = 5 and then return x to the spreadsheet by placing x in the last line of code.

# create variable 
x = 5 

# last line of code gets returned to the sheet, so x of value 5 gets returned
x

2. List of values

Lists can be returned directly to the sheet. They'll be returned value by value into corresponding cells as you can see below.

# create a list that has the numbers 1 through 5 
my_list = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

# returns the list to the spreadsheet 
my_list

3. DataFrame

You can return your DataFrames directly to the sheet by putting the DataFrame's variable name as the last line of code.

# import pandas 
import pandas as pd
 
# create some sample data 
data = [['tom', 30], ['nick', 19], ['julie', 42]]
 
# Create the DataFrame
df = pd.DataFrame(data, columns=['Name', 'Age'])
 
# return DataFrame to the sheet
df

Note that if your DataFrame has an index it will not be returned to the sheet. If you want to return the index to the sheet use the following code:

# use reset_index() method where df is the dataframe name
df.reset_index()

An example of when this is necessary is any time you use the describe() method in Pandas. This creates an index so you'll need to use reset_index() if you want to correctly display the index in the sheet when you return the DataFrame.

4. Charts

Build your chart and return it to the spreadsheet by using the fig variable name or .show()

# import plotly
import plotly.express as px

# replace this df with your data
df = px.data.gapminder().query("country=='Canada'")

# create your chart type, for more chart types: https://plotly.com/python/
fig = px.line(df, x="year", y="lifeExp", title='Life expectancy in Canada')

# display chart, alternatively can just put fig without the .show()
fig.show()

5. Function outputs

You can not use the return keyword to return data to the sheet, as that keyword only works inside of Python functions. Here is an example of using a Python function to return data to the sheet.

def do_some_math(x): 
    return x+1

# returns the result of do_some_math(), which in this case is 6 
do_some_math(5)