BUG: window function count should count anything non-null

[kawochen]

Right now np.Inf and non-numeric types are not counted.

Code Sample, a copy-pastable example if possible

import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
from pandas import DataFrame

df = DataFrame({'A': pd.date_range('20130101',periods=4), 'B': [0, 1, 2, np.Inf], 'C':['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']})

roll = df.rolling(window=2)
res = roll.count()
print(res)
## partial output A, B don't error
     A    B
0  1.0  1.0
1  2.0  2.0
2  2.0  2.0
3  2.0  1.0
## column C errors

Expected Output

   A  B  C
0  1  1  1
1  2  2  2
2  2  2  2
3  2  2  2

output of pd.show_versions()

INSTALLED VERSIONS
------------------
commit: a0aaad98e8c567a3a04aef165cdb159fbd98d13f
python: 3.5.1.final.0
python-bits: 64
OS: Linux
OS-release: 3.13.0-76-generic
machine: x86_64
processor: x86_64
byteorder: little
LC_ALL: None
LANG: en_US.UTF-8

pandas: 0.18.0rc1+77.ga0aaad9.dirty
nose: 1.3.7
pip: 8.0.1
setuptools: 19.4
Cython: 0.23.4
numpy: 1.10.2
scipy: None
statsmodels: None
xarray: None
IPython: 4.0.0
sphinx: None
patsy: None
dateutil: 2.4.2
pytz: 2015.7
blosc: None
bottleneck: 1.0.0
tables: None
numexpr: None
matplotlib: None
openpyxl: None
xlrd: None
xlwt: None
xlsxwriter: None
lxml: None
bs4: None
html5lib: None
httplib2: None
apiclient: None
sqlalchemy: 1.0.10
pymysql: None
psycopg2: None
jinja2: None
boto: None

I think it can be patched, together with #12538, by

--- a/pandas/core/window.py
+++ b/pandas/core/window.py
@@ -509,19 +509,9 @@ class _Rolling_and_Expanding(_Rolling):
         blocks, obj = self._create_blocks(how=None)
         results = []
         for b in blocks:
-
-            if com.needs_i8_conversion(b.values):
-                result = b.notnull().astype(int)
-            else:
-                try:
-                    result = np.isfinite(b).astype(float)
-                except TypeError:
-                    result = np.isfinite(b.astype(float)).astype(float)
-
-                result[pd.isnull(result)] = 0
-
-            result = self._constructor(result, window=window, min_perio
-                                       center=self.center).sum()
+            result = self._constructor(
+                b.notnull(), window=window, min_periods=0, center=self.
+            ).sum().astype(int)

[jreback]

yes that looks right.

anything break if you do that?

[MasonGallo]

I was going to help on this during my lunch, but it looks like this causes a bunch of tests to fail in test_window.py since they expect floats. Not sure if the tests should just be coerced to expect int - I can't think of a case where a count should be a float.

[jreback]

@MasonGallo the tests need to be changed as well, for count only as well. The xref issue #12538 concerns that (but I am going to close in favor of this one)

[kawochen]

For the record, can we state why signed int is preferred over unsigned int?

[jreback]

we could just use uints, but I think the problem is once you cast to uints they never cast back to integers unless you explicity do it. So if you then interoperate with signed integers you get casting.

It would probably work / be ok. uints just aren't supported quite as well (though everything may work).

[jreback]

So for consistency make this return ints.

We can always revisit the counting things -> uints later

[jreback]

hmm, anyone want to do this PR?

[MasonGallo]

I'm quite busy for the next week, but I'll take a look afterwards if someone doesn't beat me to it

[mralgos]

Hi guys, I've applied the fix suggested by @kawochen and added a specific test for that (cf. master...mralgos:gh12541).
I haven't had failures on test_window.py, but another weird thing happens at the end of a build test. More info here: https://travis-ci.org/mralgos/pandas/builds/194060134
Any idea? Thanks

[jreback]

@mralgos if you want to put up a PR that would be great