Overview

Pandas 2.2, released on January 20, 2024, adds the Calamine engine for Excel reading and ADBC support for database connections.

Main Features

Calamine engine

The calamine engine reads Excel files (xlsx, xls, ods) much faster than openpyxl, ideal for large files.

python 
import pandas as pd

# Fast reading with Calamine engine
df = pd.read_excel(
    'data.xlsx',
    engine='calamine',  # much faster
)
print(df.shape)
print(df.head())

ADBC support

ADBC (Arrow Database Connectivity) provides faster SQL reads through columnar Arrow transfer, bypassing DBAPI drivers.

python 
import pandas as pd
import adbc_driver_sqlite.dbapi as dbapi

with dbapi.connect(':memory:') as conn:
    df = pd.DataFrame({'a': [1, 2], 'b': [3, 4]})
    df.to_sql('test', conn, if_exists='replace')

    # Read via ADBC (Arrow transfer)
    result = pd.read_sql('SELECT * FROM test', conn)
    print(result)

Sources