describe

Computes basic statistics for numeric and string columns.

Syntax

describe(*cols: Union[str, List[str]])

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
cols	str, list, optional	Column name or list of column names to describe by (default All columns).

Returns

DataFrame: A new DataFrame that describes (provides statistics) given DataFrame.

Notes

This function is meant for exploratory data analysis, as we make no guarantee about the backward compatibility of the schema of the resulting DataFrame.

Use summary for expanded statistics and control over which statistics to compute.

Examples

Python

df = spark.createDataFrame(
    [("Bob", 13, 40.3, 150.5), ("Alice", 12, 37.8, 142.3), ("Tom", 11, 44.1, 142.2)],
    ["name", "age", "weight", "height"],
)
df.describe(['age']).show()
# +-------+----+
# |summary| age|
# +-------+----+
# |  count|   3|
# |   mean|12.0|
# | stddev| 1.0|
# |    min|  11|
# |    max|  13|
# +-------+----+

df.describe(['age', 'weight', 'height']).show()
# +-------+----+------------------+-----------------+
# |summary| age|            weight|           height|
# +-------+----+------------------+-----------------+
# |  count|   3|                 3|                3|
# |   mean|12.0| 40.73333333333333|            145.0|
# | stddev| 1.0|3.1722757341273704|4.763402145525822|
# |    min|  11|              37.8|            142.2|
# |    max|  13|              44.1|            150.5|
# +-------+----+------------------+-----------------+