BUG: modin.pandas.pivot_table raises ValueError when given pandas dataframe argument

[zulee1711]

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Reproducible Example

import pandas as pd
import modin.pandas as mpd
import pandas as pd
import modin.pandas as mpd
x = [{'date': pd.Timestamp('2020-01-03 00:00:00'),
  'ticker': 'CTG',
  7: 0.08},
 {'date': pd.Timestamp('2020-01-03 00:00:00'),
  'ticker': 'CTI',
  7: 0.02},
 {'date': pd.Timestamp('2020-01-03 00:00:00'),
  'ticker': 'DIG',
  7: 0.01},
 {'date': pd.Timestamp('2020-01-03 00:00:00'),
  'ticker': 'DRC',
  7: 0.069},
 {'date': pd.Timestamp('2020-01-03 00:00:00'),
  'ticker': 'HNG',
  7: 0.029},
{'date': pd.Timestamp('2020-01-04 00:00:00'),
  'ticker': 'CTG',
  7: 0.081},
 {'date': pd.Timestamp('2020-01-04 00:00:00'),
  'ticker': 'CTI',
  7: 0.025},
 {'date': pd.Timestamp('2020-01-04 00:00:00'),
  'ticker': 'DIG',
  7: 0.013},
 {'date': pd.Timestamp('2020-01-04 00:00:00'),
  'ticker': 'DRC',
  7: 0.069},
 {'date': pd.Timestamp('2020-01-04 00:00:00'),
  'ticker': 'HNG',
  7: 0.023},]
df = pd.DataFrame.from_records(x).set_index('date')
df1 = pd.pivot_table(df, index = df.index, columns = ['ticker'])
df2 = mpd.pivot_table(df, index = df.index, columns = ['ticker'])

Issue Description

When using pivot tables with modin, appear ValueError: can not create pivot table with instance of type <class 'pandas.core.frame.DataFrame'>
The regular Pandas works fine. Can anyone help me please?

Expected Behavior

df1 = pd.pivot_table(df, index = df.index, columns = ['ticker'])

Error Logs

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python38\envs\risk_model\lib\site-packages\IPython\core\interactiveshell.py", line 3398, in run_code
    exec(code_obj, self.user_global_ns, self.user_ns)
  File "<ipython-input-2-e94e585669d4>", line 37, in <cell line: 37>
    df1 = mpd.pivot_table(df, index = df.index, columns = ['ticker'])
  File "C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python38\envs\risk_model\lib\site-packages\modin\logging\logger_function.py", line 65, in run_and_log
    return f(*args, **kwargs)
  File "C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python38\envs\risk_model\lib\site-packages\modin\pandas\general.py", line 340, in pivot_table
    raise ValueError(
ValueError: can not create pivot table with instance of type <class 'pandas.core.frame.DataFrame'>

Installed Versions

INSTALLED VERSIONS

commit : e8093ba372f9adfe79439d90fe74b0b5b6dea9d6
python : 3.8.10.final.0
python-bits : 64
OS : Windows
OS-release : 10
Version : 10.0.22621
machine : AMD64
processor : Intel64 Family 6 Model 167 Stepping 1, GenuineIntel
byteorder : little
LC_ALL : None
LANG : None
LOCALE : English_United States.1252
pandas : 1.4.3
numpy : 1.23.5
pytz : 2022.7.1
dateutil : 2.8.2
setuptools : 67.6.1
pip : 23.1.2
Cython : 0.29.32
pytest : 7.1.3
hypothesis : None
sphinx : None
blosc : None
feather : None
xlsxwriter : 3.0.9
lxml.etree : 4.9.1
html5lib : 1.1
pymysql : None
psycopg2 : 2.9.3
jinja2 : 3.1.2
IPython : 8.4.0
pandas_datareader: 0.10.0
bs4 : 4.11.1
bottleneck : None
brotli : 1.0.9
fastparquet : None
fsspec : 2022.8.2
gcsfs : None
markupsafe : 2.1.1
matplotlib : 3.5.3
numba : 0.56.2
numexpr : None
odfpy : None
openpyxl : 3.0.9
pandas_gbq : None
pyarrow : 6.0.1
pyreadstat : None
pyxlsb : None
s3fs : None
scipy : 1.9.3
snappy : None
sqlalchemy : 1.4.31
tables : None
tabulate : 0.8.7
xarray : None
xlrd : None
xlwt : None
zstandard : None

[anmyachev]

@zulee1711 thanks for the contribution!

At the moment, Pandas objects are specifically not accepted by Modin. For this code to work, you need to explicitly convert Pandas' dataframe to Modin's dataframe like that:

mpd.pivot_table(mpd.DataFrame(df), index = df.index, columns = ['ticker'])

@modin-project/modin-core there are more and more situations where it would be convenient for users to pass pandas objects to Modin functions. We should rethink this.

[dchigarev]

there are more and more situations where it would be convenient for users to pass pandas objects to Modin functions. We should rethink this.

I think what we should do is to make a more describable error message in these situations, something like: "you're trying to pass pandas object to a modin's method, please make the conversion as follows...".

It could be a real pain to efficiently support both pandas and modin objects, so my vote here is only to make clear errors.

[anmyachev]

I think what we should do is to make a more describable error message in these situations, something like: "you're trying to pass pandas object to a modin's method, please make the conversion as follows...".

+1

It could be a real pain to efficiently support both pandas and modin objects, so my vote here is only to make clear errors.

We don't have to make the case with pandas dataframes fast (just give a warning that dataframe conversion takes time and if you want performance boost, you need to rewrite the code). Here it is more important to ensure seamless integration with other libraries, where the user does not have the ability to change imports.

[zulee1711]

@anmyachev Thank you

I think what we should do is to make a more describable error message in these situations, something like: "you're trying to pass pandas object to a modin's method, please make the conversion as follows...".

A more detailed message is much appreciated. Since the error gave a warning in <class 'pandas.core.frame.DataFrame'>, I would know that there's something wrong with the code related to pandas dataframe, but wouldn't necessarily know where to look for an answer

[YarShev]

UPD: Even using Modin objects, I see the following error on latest master.

TypeError: '<' not supported between instances of 'str' and 'Timestamp'