DOC: API reference doesn't list documentation for some general and I/O functions

[alexander3774]

Pandas version checks

• I have checked that the issue still exists on the latest versions of the docs on main here

Location of the documentation

Expected fiunctions URLs:

https://pandas.pydata.org/docs/dev/reference/api/pandas.to_pickle.html
https://pandas.pydata.org/docs/dev/reference/api/pandas.value_counts.html
https://pandas.pydata.org/docs/dev/reference/api/pandas.lreshape.html

Documentation problem

I had recently found that pandas docs site doesn't show any documentation for pd.to_pickle, pd.lreshape and pd.value_counts (only for DataFrame/Series anologues in some cases). Is it expected behaviour? Is it planned to be added in the further pandas releases?

Suggested fix for documentation

If it is not expected, these functions can be added in the general_fucntions and io rst files.

[simonjayhawkins]

Thanks @alexander3774 for the report.

pd.value_counts was explicitly added to the public api in c6cee43, #1392 so it should be documented. As the function only accepts 1d numpy arrays and not any pandas object then I would also be inclined to remove this for the public api in a future pandas version.

[simonjayhawkins]

There has been a suggestion to deprecate pd.lreshape #34313 so we could also consider deliberately leaving it out of the documentation to discourage new users finding it.

[alexander3774]

@simonjayhawkins thanks for reply! I think the ticket can be closed since noted functions are considered to be removed from high-level API.