period_range() bug?

[ifmihai]

I did:

63 In : df = P.DataFrame(index=P.period_range('2000-1-1 10:20', '2005-1-1 12:00'))

64 In : df.index[0]
64 Out: Period('2000-01-01', 'D')

65 In : df.index[0].hour
65 Out: 0

it should have been 10, right?

why does period_range() loses time information?

I was recommended to use periods and period_range() because of pandas Timestamp limitation (nanoseconds time units)

now I'm stuck, because I need datetimes outside Timestamp range

ps.
would it be too drastic to change time units from nanoseconds to microseconds in Timestamp? so that we would be happier? :P
see also #7307

[jreback]

docs are here

you need to specify the freq
.

In [81]: period_range('2000-1-1 10:20','2005-1-1 12:00',freq='H')
Out[81]: 
<class 'pandas.tseries.period.PeriodIndex'>
[2000-01-01 10:00, ..., 2005-01-01 12:00]
Length: 43851, Freq: H

In [82]: period_range('2000-1-1 10:20','2005-1-1 12:00',freq='H')[0].hour
Out[82]: 10

[ifmihai]

but i don't need 'H' frequency

I need daily frequency that starts at some hour
wasn't the example clear enough?

[jreback]

what are you trying to do with the range? e.g. show the output frame you are expecting

[ifmihai]

I don't know what normalize does, I will look into it.
it already becomes too complicated.

i need to make a dataframe with Timestamp index functionality
daily, starting at 12:00 for example
then to calculate ephemeris for it as a start
and then adding other data

when it comes to planets or geological studies, Timestamp is so limited I want to scream

[jreback]

and the example I gave give you and hourly frequency, no?

show your start and end dates and a sample of the index.

[ifmihai]

what I do usually, an example that works with Timestamps:

df = P.DataFrame(index=P.date_range('1950-1-1 12:00', '2050-1-1'))
df = add_ephemeris_function(df)  # which updates the dataframe with planetary information

the problem appears when the range is too big for Timestamp

[jreback]

What is the point of the hour if you don't have hourly frequency?

[ifmihai]

if you calculate moon position at midnight, period_range() will do I guess

but moon travels 6 degrees in 12 hours

so if I need planet positions as 12:00, daily
period_range() is useless

date_range() works, but it's limited

[jreback]

so you prob want something like this: #7811
contributions are welcome

[ifmihai]

i'm not sure I need that (although i didn't understood his need exactly)

In my mind,
a period is a start point + span

i don't understand why the start point has to be 00:00 for daily

I see that if I do:

102 In : P.period_range('2000-1-13', '2002-1-26', freq='M')[0]
102 Out: Period('2000-01', 'M')

103 In : P.period_range('2000-1-13', '2002-1-26', freq='M')[0].day
103 Out: 31

it doesnt make sense to me at all.

in my mind
a period has a starting point (in this case 2000-1-13)
and then we keep adding spans of one month
2000-2-13, 2000-3-13, and so on

myeah, so no PeriodIndex for me, it doesnt click for me

[jreback]

@ifmihai you might be better off asking colleagues / mailing lists for your field on how they use pandas.

[ifmihai]

@jreback it's a good point, i will do that
my main frustration is that i have a lot of code which works nice but it's based on Timestamps
I made a poor decision apparently at the beginning
I want to avoid changing all the code
plus, I don't have an alternative... yet...
except maybe mxdatetime from egenix, but it appears it doesnt play well with pandas

[jreback]

@ifmihai its unclear what is not working for you. If you supply a complete example you might get some more help. Periods do not have 100% feature compat with Timestamps, because they don't have the user base. We are working to fix that, and if something is missing (see the issue I ref above), then it will be addressed.

But, I stress that Periods are exactly what you are looking and they were setup to span ANY timestamp.

[ifmihai]

my need is quite simple

thinking in daily frequency
having a starting datetime, like '2014-7-22 12:00'
i need to create an index (with Timestamps functionality):
2014-7-22 12:00
2014-7-23 12:00
2014-7-24 12:00
...
etc

date_range() is capable of starting from 12:00 and then add to datetimes the desired frequency
period_range() insists on changing the starting point, making it 2014-7-22 00:00

it doesn't feel right for me,
that's not a period
that's a particular period, which starts at 00:00, just because

a period, I repeat, in my mind is: starting point + freq span

I would want period_range() or any function which generates a range
to not mess with starting point, to let it be exactly as it was given

I hope I'm clear now, I didn't know it wasnt clear, sorry