Convert a human readable DataFrame representation to an actual DataFrame

to_dataframe.py

import pandas as pd
from functools import wraps


@wraps(pd.read_csv)
def to_dataframe(s, sep='[\s]+', **kwargs):
    """
    Convert a human readable DataFrame representation to an actual DataFrame
    
    s : string
    
    Returns
    -------
    df : DataFrame
    """
    df = pd.read_csv(pd.core.common.StringIO(s), sep=sep, **kwargs)
    return df


def test1():
    s = """
    date        hour1  hour2  hour3  hour4
    2012-12-31   9.18  -0.10  -7.00 -64.92
    2012-12-30  13.91   0.09  -0.96   0.08
    2012-12-29  12.97  11.82  11.65  10.20
    2012-12-28  22.01  16.04  15.68  11.67
    2012-12-27  11.44   0.07 -19.97 -67.98
    """

    df = to_dataframe(s)
    print df
    print df.dtypes


def test2():
    input_with_unnamed_index = """
             date  hour1  hour2  hour3  hour4
    0  2012-12-31   9.18  -0.10  -7.00 -64.92
    1  2012-12-30  13.91   0.09  -0.96   0.08
    2  2012-12-29  12.97  11.82  11.65  10.20
    3  2012-12-28  22.01  16.04  15.68  11.67
    4  2012-12-27  11.44   0.07 -19.97 -67.98
    """
    df = to_dataframe(input_with_unnamed_index)
    print df
    print df.dtypes


if __name__ == '__main__':
    test1()
    test2()