Fundamental issue with ix

[mcobzarenco]

Using square bracket indexing [x] on a Series where x is an integer
seems to return:

• the item at the index x if such index is present
• the x-th item if the index does not exist
  To be precise:
  In [190]: ss = pandas.Series(range(10), index = range(0, 20, 2))
  ...: print ss
  ...:
  0 0
  2 1
  4 2
  6 3
  8 4
  10 5
  12 6
  14 7
  16 8
  18 9
  Name: None, Length: 10
  In [191]: ss[0]
  Out[191]: 0
  In [192]: ss[1]
  Out[192]: 1
  In [193]: ss[2]
  Out[193]: 1
  In [194]: ss[3]
  Out[194]: 3
  In [195]: ss[4]
  Out[195]: 2
  In [196]: ss[17]

---

KeyError Traceback (most recent call
last)
/home/marius/Code/ccapital/ in
()
----> 1 ss[17]
/usr/lib64/python2.7/site-packages/pandas/core/series.pyc in
getitem(self, key)
267 except Exception, _:
268 pass
--> 269 raise e1
270 except TypeError:
271 pass
KeyError: 17
In [197]: ss[18]
Out[197]: 9

Is this behaviour intended? To me it seems like a fundamental bug.

From the documentation:
Select row by location (int): df.ix[loc] Series
Which is not what ix seems to be doing.

If the labels are made strings, the behaviour is utterly different
(correct according to the documentation):
ss = pandas.Series(range(10), index = map(str, range(0, 20, 2)))
print ss
0 0
2 1
4 2
6 3
8 4
10 5
12 6
14 7
16 8
18 9
Name: None, Length: 10
ss[0]
Out[220]: 0
ss[1]
Out[221]: 1
ss[2]
Out[222]: 2

Many thanks,
-- Marius

[changhiskhan]

This is intended behavior. The whole issue arises because there is confusion when you use integer indices. i.e., when you pass in an integer key x, do you want the item corresponding to key x or the x-th item? The same logic applies in your second example, it's just that there is no item corresponding to key x because x is an integer while your index is all str.

I think you would rather allow a careful user to use integer keys when necessary than automatically converting all integer keys to str. In your second example where you convert the index into str, you would get this behavior:

0 0
10 5
12 6
14 7
16 8
18 9
2 1
...

[wesm]

I'm considering making this API change for 0.7.0. I feel it would be for the greater good. Tag @adamklein on the discussion

[wesm]

Alright, I went ahead and made this API change. It appears it was only necessary with Series-- everything else seems to be OK.