Frictionless is a data management framework for describing, extracting, validating and transforming tabular datasets. It provides a consistent interface for working with structured information from different sources, helping developers and data analysts maintain data quality throughout their workflows.
The framework is based on the Frictionless Data specifications, which define standard ways to describe tables, fields and datasets. These specifications make data easier to understand, exchange and reuse. Frictionless is particularly useful when handling datasets from multiple sources, where differences in structure, formatting and content can complicate processing.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Infer table schemas automatically, including field names, data types and other metadata.
- Describe individual data resources and collections of related resources using standardised metadata.
- Read data from CSV, Excel, JSON, SQL databases and other supported formats.
- Access remote resources through HTTP, FTP and S3-compatible storage.
- Validate tables, resources and complete datasets against defined schemas.
- Detect missing cells, blank rows, duplicate headers, incorrect data types and other structural problems.
- Apply field constraints to check values against expected ranges, patterns and requirements.
- Generate detailed validation reports identifying errors, affected rows and fields.
- Transform datasets through reusable pipelines for cleaning, reshaping and transferring data.
- Process large datasets with a streaming approach that limits memory consumption.
- Extend functionality through custom validation checks, formats and plugins.
- Use the command-line interface to inspect and validate datasets without writing application code.
- Cross-platform support – runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows.
Website: github.com/frictionlessdata/frictionless-py
Support:
Developer: Frictionless Data / Open Knowledge Foundation
License: MIT License
Frictionless is written in Python. Learn Python with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
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