TST: unicode columns in filter(like=...) #2467

RELEASE.rst

@@ -187,6 +187,7 @@ pandas 0.10.0
   - Preserve time zone when .append-ing two time series (#2260)
   - Box timestamps when calling reset_index on time-zone-aware index rather
     than creating a tz-less datetime64 column (#2262)
+  - Enable searching non-string columns in DataFrame.filter(like=...) (#2467)
 
 pandas 0.9.1
 ============

pandas/core/frame.py

@@ -2890,7 +2890,9 @@ def filter(self, items=None, like=None, regex=None):
         if items is not None:
             return self.reindex(columns=[r for r in items if r in self])
         elif like:
-            return self.select(lambda x: like in str(x), axis=1)
+            matchf = lambda x: (like in x if isinstance(x, basestring)
+                                else like in str(x))
+            return self.select(matchf, axis=1)
         elif regex:
             matcher = re.compile(regex)
             return self.select(lambda x: matcher.search(x) is not None, axis=1)

pandas/tests/test_frame.py

@@ -5900,6 +5900,11 @@ def test_filter(self):
         filtered = self.mixed_frame.filter(like='foo')
         self.assert_('foo' in filtered)
 
+        # unicode columns, won't ascii-encode
+        df = self.frame.rename(columns={'B': u'\u2202'})
+        filtered = df.filter(like='C')
+        self.assertTrue('C' in filtered)
+
     def test_filter_regex_search(self):
         fcopy = self.frame.copy()
         fcopy['AA'] = 1