Dataset Download and Environment Setup

Before any coding or analysis can begin, the working environment must be prepared correctly. In this project, the dataset is sourced from Kaggle (https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/parasharmanas/movie-recommendation-system), which typically provides datasets in compressed ZIP format. Since we are using Google Colab, the dataset must be extracted inside the Colab file system before it can be accessed by Python.

This step is important because pandas and other Python libraries cannot directly read data from a compressed ZIP file unless it is explicitly extracted. If this step is skipped, the dataset files will not be found, and the project cannot proceed.

Code:

!unzip '/content/archive.zip'

When this command is executed, all files inside the ZIP archive are extracted into the /content/ directory. After extraction, files such as movies.csv and ratings.csv become available for further processing. This confirms that the dataset is now ready to be loaded into memory.