head, info y describe

When a new table lands, three methods give you a fast first look. They answer what, what type, and how much before any analysis. 👀

The head method prints the first five rows so you can eyeball real values without flooding your screen with thousands of lines.

Pass a number to head to control the preview size. head(3) shows three rows, perfect for a quick glance at a wide table.

Its mirror, tail, prints the last rows. Great for checking that a sorted or appended table really ends the way you expect.

The info method reports column names, their data types, and how many non-null values each one holds. It is your structural x-ray.

In info, compare each column's non-null count to the total row count. A gap is your first missing data warning sign.

info also surfaces dtypes. A number stored as object usually means stray text or symbols you will need to clean before math works.

The describe method computes count, mean, std, min, max, and quartiles for every numeric column in a single tidy table.

In describe, the mean shows the center while std and the min-max range show the spread. Together they sketch each column's shape.

Add include="object" to describe text columns. You get count, unique values, the top value, and how often it appears.

Run head, then info, then describe on any fresh table. This ritual orients you in seconds before you commit to deeper work.

Match each method to the job it does best.

Use head for values, info for structure, and describe for stats. Three lines and you understand any new table. 🔍