Course

Text Processing for Data Science

In this course, you’ll learn how to read documentation and how to use standard streams with redirection and pipelines to facilitate text processing. By the end, you’ll be comfortable using the command line in your day-to-day data analysis tasks.

Enroll for free

Part of the Data Analyst (Python), and Data Scientist (Python) paths.

4.8 (359 reviews)

16,067 learners enrolled in this course.

Intermediate friendly
4 hours
Self paced
5 lessons

“I tried Udacity, but quickly realized it wasn’t going to work—I didn’t have time during the day to watch full videos.”

Luiz Zanini

Senior Product Manager @Mastercard

Text Processing for Data Science

Enroll For Free

Course overview

This course builds on the Command Line for Data Science course. You’ll learn how to read documentation, how to inspect files, how to perform basic text processing using the command line, how to redirect and pipe output, and how to access documentation for different commands if you get stuck. Best of all, you’ll learn by doing – you’ll practice and get feedback directly in the browser.

Key skills

Reading and exploring documentation
Inspecting files and performing basic text processing
Redirecting and piping output
Employing streams and file descriptors

Course outline

Text Processing for Data Science [5 lessons]

Getting Help and Reading Documentation 1h

Lesson Objectives

Employ different types of commands
Get help on command usage
Read documentation

File Inspection 1h

Lesson Objectives

See the contents of files
Identify different file types
Define option-arguments

Text Processing 1h

Lesson Objectives

Concatenate files
Sort files
Subset data by rows and columns
Extract data with regular expressions

Redirection and Pipelines 1h

Lesson Objectives

Redirect output to files
Create empty files
Define the importance of pipelines
Employ pipelines

Standard Streams and File Descriptors 1h

Lesson Objectives

Define standard streams
Define file descriptors
Redirect input

The Dataquest guarantee

Dataquest has helped thousands of people start new careers in data. If you put in the work and follow our path, you’ll master data skills and grow your career.

We believe so strongly in our paths that we offer a full satisfaction guarantee. If you complete a career path on Dataquest and aren’t satisfied with your outcome, we’ll give you a refund.

Master skills faster with Dataquest

Go from zero to job-ready

Learn exactly what you need to achieve your goal. Don’t waste time on unrelated lessons.

Build your project portfolio

Build confidence with our in-depth projects, and show off your data skills.

Challenge yourself with exercises

Work with real data from day one with interactive lessons and hands-on exercises.

Showcase your path certification

Share the evidence of your hard work with your network and potential employers.

Grow your career with
Dataquest.

98%

of learners recommend

Dataquest for career advancement

4.85

Dataquest rating

SwitchUp Best Bootcamps

$30k

Average salary boost

for learners who complete a path

Aaron Melton

Business Analyst at Aditi Consulting

“Dataquest starts at the most basic level, so a beginner can understand the concepts. I tried learning to code before, using Codecademy and Coursera. I struggled because I had no background in coding, and I was spending a lot of time Googling. Dataquest helped me actually learn.”

Jessica Ko

Machine Learning Engineer at Twitter

“I liked the interactive environment on Dataquest. The material was clear and well organized. I spent more time practicing then watching videos and it made me want to keep learning.”

Victoria E. Guzik

Associate Data Scientist at Callisto Media

“I really love learning on Dataquest. I looked into a couple of other options and I found that they were much too handhold-y and fill in the blank relative to Dataquest’s method. The projects on Dataquest were key to getting my job. I doubled my income!”