To get the first 5 rows of a dataframe, you normally use a built-in “head” method or slicing , depending on the library or language you’re using.

In Python (pandas DataFrame)

The most common case people mean by “dataframe” today is a pandas DataFrame.

python

import pandas as pd

# assume df is your DataFrame
first_five = df.head()        # returns first 5 rows by default
# or explicitly
first_five = df.head(5)

You can also use slicing:

python

first_five = df[:5]           # rows with index 0–4

In R (data.frame / tibble)

For base R data.frames:

r

head(df, 5)    # first 5 rows

For tibbles (tidyverse), the same works:

r

head(df, 5)

In PySpark (Spark DataFrame)

python

df.show(5)          # shows first 5 rows in console
first_five = df.take(5)   # returns a list of Row objects

In SQL (table treated like a dataframe)

For many SQL dialects:

sql

SELECT * FROM your_table
LIMIT 5;

In SQL Server / some others:

sql

SELECT TOP 5 * FROM your_table;

HTML view of first 5 rows (pandas, in a notebook or web)

If you specifically want HTML (e.g., for a web page):

python

html_table = df.head(5).to_html()

This returns a string containing an HTML <table>...</table> that you can embed in a webpage or render in a template.

TL;DR

  • Pandas: df.head() (or df.head(5) or df[:5]).
  • R: head(df, 5)
  • PySpark: df.show(5)
  • SQL: SELECT * FROM table LIMIT 5;

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.