Function qcut

pandas/core/reshape/tile.py:296–393

Quantile-based discretization function. Discretize variable into equal-sized buckets based on rank or based on sample quantiles. For example 1000 values for 10 quantiles would produce a Categorical object indicating quantile membership for each data point. Parameters -----

(
    x,
    q,
    labels=None,
    retbins: bool = False,
    precision: int = 3,
    duplicates: str = "raise",
)

@set_module("pandas")
def qcut(
    x,
    q,
    labels=None,
    retbins: bool = False,
    precision: int = 3,
    duplicates: str = "raise",
):
    """
    Quantile-based discretization function.

    Discretize variable into equal-sized buckets based on rank or based
    on sample quantiles. For example 1000 values for 10 quantiles would
    produce a Categorical object indicating quantile membership for each data point.

    Parameters
    ----------
    x : 1d ndarray or Series
        Input Numpy array or pandas Series object to be discretized.
    q : int or list-like of float
        Number of quantiles. 10 for deciles, 4 for quartiles, etc. Alternately
        array of quantiles, e.g. [0, .25, .5, .75, 1.] for quartiles.
    labels : array or False, default None
        Used as labels for the resulting bins. Must be of the same length as
        the resulting bins. If False, return only integer indicators of the
        bins. If True, raises an error.
    retbins : bool, optional
        Whether to return the (bins, labels) or not. Can be useful if bins
        is given as a scalar.
    precision : int, optional
        The precision at which to store and display the bins labels.
    duplicates : {default 'raise', 'drop'}, optional
        If bin edges are not unique, raise ValueError or drop non-uniques.

    Returns
    -------
    out : Categorical or Series or array of integers if labels is False
        The return type (Categorical or Series) depends on the input: a Series
        of type category if input is a Series else Categorical. Bins are
        represented as categories when categorical data is returned.
    bins : ndarray of floats
        Returned only if `retbins` is True.

    See Also
    --------
    cut : Bin values into discrete intervals.
    Series.quantile : Return value at the given quantile.

    Notes
    -----
    Out of bounds values will be NA in the resulting Categorical object

    Examples
    --------
    >>> pd.qcut(range(5), 4)
    ... # doctest: +ELLIPSIS
    [(-0.001, 1.0], (-0.001, 1.0], (1.0, 2.0], (2.0, 3.0], (3.0, 4.0]]
    Categories (4, interval[float64, right]): [(-0.001, 1.0] < (1.0, 2.0] ...