---
title: prefer notna to notnull
description: Datadog, the leading service for cloud-scale monitoring.
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  Docs > Datadog Security > Code Security > Static Code Analysis (SAST) > SAST
  Rules > prefer notna to notnull
---

# prefer notna to notnull

{% callout %}
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## Metadata{% #metadata %}

**ID:** `python-pandas/notna-instead-of-notnull`

**Language:** Python

**Severity:** Info

**Category:** Best Practices

## Description{% #description %}

The functions `notna` and `notnull` are similar. However, this is a best practice to use `notna` since other methods use the same naming patterns.

## Non-Compliant Code Examples{% #non-compliant-code-examples %}

```python
notnulls = pd.notnull(val)
```

## Compliant Code Examples{% #compliant-code-examples %}

```python
notnas = pd.notna(val)
```
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