How to create a lagged data structure using pandas dataframe

Question

Example

s=pd.Series([5,4,3,2,1], index=[1,2,3,4,5])
print s 
1    5
2    4
3    3
4    2
5    1

Is there an efficient way to create a serie

Answer 1

Assuming you are focusing on a single column in your data frame, saved into s. This shortcode will generate instances of the column with 7 lags.

s=pd.Series([5,4,3,2,1], index=[1,2,3,4,5], name='test')
shiftdf=pd.DataFrame()
for i in range(3):
    shiftdf = pd.concat([shiftdf , s.shift(i).rename(s.name+'_'+str(i))], axis=1)

shiftdf

>>
test_0  test_1  test_2
1   5   NaN NaN
2   4   5.0 NaN
3   3   4.0 5.0
4   2   3.0 4.0
5   1   2.0 3.0