get_column_count()function

Get the number of columns in a table.

USAGE

get_column_count(data)

The get_column_count() function returns the number of columns in a table. The function works with any table that is supported by the pointblank library, including Pandas, Polars, and Ibis backend tables (e.g., DuckDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Parquet, etc.).

Parameters

data : FrameT | Any

The table for which to get the column count, which could be a DataFrame object or an Ibis table object. Read the Supported Input Table Types section for details on the supported table types.

Returns

int

The number of columns in the table.

Supported Input Table Types

The data= parameter can be given any of the following table types:

  • Polars DataFrame ("polars")
  • Pandas DataFrame ("pandas")
  • DuckDB table ("duckdb")*
  • MySQL table ("mysql")*
  • PostgreSQL table ("postgresql")*
  • SQLite table ("sqlite")*
  • Microsoft SQL Server table ("mssql")*
  • Snowflake table ("snowflake")*
  • Databricks table ("databricks")*
  • PySpark table ("pyspark")*
  • BigQuery table ("bigquery")*
  • Parquet table ("parquet")*

The table types marked with an asterisk need to be prepared as Ibis tables (with type of ibis.expr.types.relations.Table). Furthermore, using get_column_count() with these types of tables requires the Ibis library (v9.5.0 or above) to be installed. If the input table is a Polars or Pandas DataFrame, the availability of Ibis is not needed.

Examples

To get the number of columns in a table, we can use the get_column_count() function. Here’s an example using the small_table dataset (itself loaded using the load_dataset() function):

import pointblank as pb

small_table_polars = pb.load_dataset("small_table")

pb.get_column_count(small_table_polars)
8

This table is a Polars DataFrame, but the get_column_count() function works with any table supported by pointblank, including Pandas DataFrames and Ibis backend tables. Here’s an example using a DuckDB table handled by Ibis:

small_table_duckdb = pb.load_dataset("small_table", tbl_type="duckdb")

pb.get_column_count(small_table_duckdb)
8

The function always returns the number of columns in the table as an integer value, which is 8 for the small_table dataset.

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