Reading HTML tables in Data Analysis Python - Cheat Sheet & Quick Revision

Recall & Review

beginner

What Python library is commonly used to read HTML tables into data frames?

The pandas library is commonly used to read HTML tables using the read_html() function.

beginner

What does the read_html() function return when it reads an HTML page with tables?

It returns a list of DataFrames, one for each table found in the HTML content.

beginner

How can you read only the first table from an HTML page using pandas?

You can get the first table by accessing the first element of the list returned by read_html(), like tables = pd.read_html(url); df = tables[0].

intermediate

What parameter can you use in read_html() to specify a particular table by its HTML id or class?

You can use the attrs parameter with a dictionary, for example attrs={'id': 'table_id'} to select a table with a specific id.

intermediate

Why might read_html() fail to read tables from some web pages?

Because some tables are generated dynamically by JavaScript, and read_html() only reads static HTML content. In such cases, you may need tools like Selenium or requests-html.

What type of object does pandas.read_html() return?

A A dictionary

B A single DataFrame

C A string

D A list of DataFrames

read_html() returns a list because an HTML page can have multiple tables.

Which parameter helps you select tables by HTML attributes in read_html()?

A attrs

B index_col

C header

D parse_dates

The attrs parameter lets you filter tables by attributes like id or class.

If you want only the first table from a webpage, what should you do after read_html()?

A Set <code>single_table=True</code>

B Use the <code>first_table</code> parameter

C Access the first element of the returned list

D Use <code>read_table()</code> instead

Since read_html() returns a list, you get the first table by tables[0].

Why might read_html() not find any tables on some websites?

A Tables are generated by JavaScript after page load

B The website uses HTTPS

C The tables are too large

D The tables are in CSV format

JavaScript-generated tables are not in the static HTML source, so read_html() can't see them.

Which library do you import to use read_html()?

A numpy

B pandas

C matplotlib

D requests

read_html() is a function in the pandas library.

Explain how to read tables from a webpage using pandas and how to select a specific table.

Think about how pandas returns multiple tables and how to pick one.

Describe a limitation of pandas.read_html() when working with modern websites.

Consider how web pages load content dynamically.