title: Python - object - df.type() - what is it ? What can I do with it?
body: <p>I have spent my whole day, scratching my head and searching for infos without any success. </p>
  
  <p>I am trying to import an XLS file. 28 columns. 1010 rows. 
  In these rows/columns, I thought I would import basic int/float/strings ... 
  And I thought that I would be able to make calculations between ints, and find some strings contained in some column values... </p>
  
  <p>But that was a newbie utopia. as usual... ;)</p>
  
  <p>here's the codes : </p>
  
  <pre><code>import pandas as pd
  import numpy as np
  filename = ("D:/PRIVATE/Turb002/Downloads/suivialso3.xlsx")
  df = pd.read_excel(filename)
  df.columns = ['Reference','Artiste','Titre','Code_Prix','Sortie','Suppr','Profit_Center','O_D','J_2_QTE NETTE','J_1_QTE_NETTE','S_2_QTE_NETTE','S_1_QTE_NETTE','S_QTE_NETTE','M_1_QTE_NETTE','M_QTE_BRUTE','M_QTE_DEPOT_VENTE','M_QTE_RETOUR','M_QTE_STOCK_RACHETE','M_QTE_NETTE','ORIGINE_QTE_BRUTE','ORIGINE_QTE_RETOUR','ORIGINE_QTE_NETTE','CDES_EN _ATTENTE','PORTEFEUILLE_RETOUR','STOCK','STOCK_RETOUR','NON_ENCORE_RECONDITIONNABLE','STOCK_AVANCE']
  df.dtypes
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>the answer to that : </p>
  
  <pre><code>&gt;&gt;&gt; print (df.dtypes)
  Référence                              object
  Artiste                                object
  Titre                                  object
  Code Prix                              object
  Sortie                         datetime64[ns]
  Suppr                                 float64
  Profit Center                          object
  O / D                                  object
  J-2 QTE NETTE                         float64
  J-1 QTE NETTE                         float64
  S-2 QTE NETTE                         float64
  .....
  dtype: object
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I can manipulate the floats without any problems. 
  But :
  1) what is an object ? 
  3) Any good tutorial to understand Object manipulation with Panda (couldn't find anything .... ) ?
  2) What are his attributes ? 
  And most importantly..... 
  3) How can I manipulate it ? </p>
  
  <p>I would like to select/find/ what's in this object when needed as I usually do with strings, int's, etc etc.... </p>
  
  <p>when :
      df['Artiste'] contains at least a string as 'oen' even if df['Artiste'] is 'Phoenix'</p>
  
  <p>or when 
      df['Artiste'] contains exact "value" of 'Phoenix' = True</p>
  
  <p>or sort by any possibility.. or replace.... </p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <h2>And weirdly, df['Référence'] type is an object but it's really only a number so should be a FLOAT64... when J-2 QTE NETTE is also a number but is typed as a FLOAT64</h2>
  
  <p>I understand that I'm stuck just because I don't understand well how to apprehend this 'Object' type... and couldn't find any meaningful informations online regarding my problem. 
  I don't know if I should import differently the file by changing attributes/encoding, or if it's better to manipulate objects than strings (memory, calculations...), if I can convert these objects or else.... </p>
  
  <p>Any help is more than welcomed... </p>