Selecting data from an HDFStore by floating-point data_column - python-2.7

Question

I have a table in an HDFStore with a column of floats f stored as a data_column. I would like to select a subset of rows where, e.g., f==0.6.
I'm running in to trouble that I'm assuming is related to a floating-point precision mismatch somewhere. Here is an example:
In [1]: f = np.arange(0, 1, 0.1)
In [2]: s = f.astype('S')
In [3]: df = pd.DataFrame({'f': f, 's': s})
In [4]: df
Out[4]:
f s
0 0.0 0.0
1 0.1 0.1
2 0.2 0.2
3 0.3 0.3
4 0.4 0.4
5 0.5 0.5
6 0.6 0.6
7 0.7 0.7
8 0.8 0.8
9 0.9 0.9
[10 rows x 2 columns]
In [5]: with pd.get_store('test.h5', mode='w') as store:
...: store.append('df', df, data_columns=True)
...:
In [6]: with pd.get_store('test.h5', mode='r') as store:
...: selection = store.select('df', 'f=f')
...:
In [7]: selection
Out[7]:
f s
0 0.0 0.0
1 0.1 0.1
2 0.2 0.2
4 0.4 0.4
5 0.5 0.5
8 0.8 0.8
9 0.9 0.9
[7 rows x 2 columns]
I would like the query to return all of the rows but instead several are missing. A query with where='f=0.3' returns an empty table:
In [8]: with pd.get_store('test.h5', mode='r') as store:
selection = store.select('df', 'f=0.3')
...:
In [9]: selection
Out[9]:
Empty DataFrame
Columns: [f, s]
Index: []
[0 rows x 2 columns]
I'm wondering whether this is the intended behavior, and if so is there is a simple workaround, such as setting a precision limit for floating-point queries in pandas? I'm using version 0.13.1:
In [10]: pd.__version__
Out[10]: '0.13.1-55-g7d3e41c'

Answer 1

I don't think so, no. Pandas is built around numpy, and I have never seen any tools for approximate float equality except testing utilities like assert_allclose, and that won't help here.
The best you can do is something like:
In [17]: with pd.get_store('test.h5', mode='r') as store:
selection = store.select('df', '(f > 0.2) & (f < 0.4)')
....:
In [18]: selection
Out[18]:
f s
3 0.3 0.3
If this is a common idiom for you, make a function for it. You can even get fancy by incorporating numpy float precision.