BUG: Unstacking MultiIndex with datetime tz-aware data raises ValueError: cannot create a DatetimeTZBlock without a tz

[cancan101]

Code Sample, a copy-pastable example if possible

df = pd.DataFrame({
    'timestamp': [pd.Timestamp('2017-08-27 01:00:00.709949+0000', tz='UTC')],
    'a': ['a'],
    'b': ['b'],
    'c': ['c'],
})
df.set_index(['a', 'b']).unstack()

Problem description

Exception thrown. This used to work pre 0.21 and works with non Timestamp columns

ValueError                                Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-13-469280bd9dc1> in <module>()
      5     'c': ['c'],
      6 })
----> 7 df.set_index(['a', 'b']).unstack()

/usr/local/lib/python3.5/dist-packages/pandas/core/frame.py in unstack(self, level, fill_value)
   4544         """
   4545         from pandas.core.reshape.reshape import unstack
-> 4546         return unstack(self, level, fill_value)
   4547 
   4548     _shared_docs['melt'] = ("""

/usr/local/lib/python3.5/dist-packages/pandas/core/reshape/reshape.py in unstack(obj, level, fill_value)
    467     if isinstance(obj, DataFrame):
    468         if isinstance(obj.index, MultiIndex):
--> 469             return _unstack_frame(obj, level, fill_value=fill_value)
    470         else:
    471             return obj.T.stack(dropna=False)

/usr/local/lib/python3.5/dist-packages/pandas/core/reshape/reshape.py in _unstack_frame(obj, level, fill_value)
    480         unstacker = partial(_Unstacker, index=obj.index,
    481                             level=level, fill_value=fill_value)
--> 482         blocks = obj._data.unstack(unstacker)
    483         klass = type(obj)
    484         return klass(blocks)

/usr/local/lib/python3.5/dist-packages/pandas/core/internals.py in unstack(self, unstacker_func)
   4337                 partial(unstacker_func,
   4338                         value_columns=self.items[blk.mgr_locs.indexer]),
-> 4339                 new_columns)
   4340 
   4341             new_blocks.extend(blocks)

/usr/local/lib/python3.5/dist-packages/pandas/core/internals.py in _unstack(self, unstacker_func, new_columns)
   1808 
   1809         blocks = [self.make_block_same_class(vals, [place])
-> 1810                   for vals, place in zip(new_values, new_placement)]
   1811         return blocks, mask
   1812 

/usr/local/lib/python3.5/dist-packages/pandas/core/internals.py in <listcomp>(.0)
   1808 
   1809         blocks = [self.make_block_same_class(vals, [place])
-> 1810                   for vals, place in zip(new_values, new_placement)]
   1811         return blocks, mask
   1812 

/usr/local/lib/python3.5/dist-packages/pandas/core/internals.py in make_block_same_class(self, values, placement, fastpath, **kwargs)
    222             placement = self.mgr_locs
    223         return make_block(values, placement=placement, klass=self.__class__,
--> 224                           fastpath=fastpath, **kwargs)
    225 
    226     @mgr_locs.setter

/usr/local/lib/python3.5/dist-packages/pandas/core/internals.py in make_block(values, placement, klass, ndim, dtype, fastpath)
   2948     elif klass is DatetimeTZBlock and not is_datetimetz(values):
   2949         return klass(values, ndim=ndim, fastpath=fastpath,
-> 2950                      placement=placement, dtype=dtype)
   2951 
   2952     return klass(values, ndim=ndim, fastpath=fastpath, placement=placement)

/usr/local/lib/python3.5/dist-packages/pandas/core/internals.py in __init__(self, values, placement, ndim, **kwargs)
   2610 
   2611         if values.tz is None:
-> 2612             raise ValueError("cannot create a DatetimeTZBlock without a tz")
   2613 
   2614         super(DatetimeTZBlock, self).__init__(values, placement=placement,

ValueError: cannot create a DatetimeTZBlock without a tz

Expected Output

   c timestamp
b  b         b
a             
a  c       2017-08-27 01:00:00.709949+00:00

Output of pd.show_versions()

INSTALLED VERSIONS

commit: None
python: 3.5.2.final.0
python-bits: 64
OS: Linux
OS-release: 4.4.0-1039-aws
machine: x86_64
processor: x86_64
byteorder: little
LC_ALL: C.UTF-8
LANG: C.UTF-8
LOCALE: en_US.UTF-8

pandas: 0.21.0
pytest: 3.2.3
pip: 9.0.1
setuptools: 36.6.0
Cython: 0.27.2
numpy: 1.13.3
scipy: 1.0.0
pyarrow: None
xarray: None
IPython: 6.2.1
sphinx: None
patsy: None
dateutil: 2.6.1
pytz: 2017.3
blosc: None
bottleneck: None
tables: None
numexpr: None
feather: None
matplotlib: 2.1.0
openpyxl: None
xlrd: None
xlwt: None
xlsxwriter: None
lxml: None
bs4: None
html5lib: 0.9999999
sqlalchemy: 1.1.15
pymysql: None
psycopg2: 2.7.3.2 (dt dec pq3 ext lo64)
jinja2: 2.9.6
s3fs: None
fastparquet: None
pandas_gbq: None
pandas_datareader: None

[jreback]

There are a number of related issue w.r.t. reshaping and dti-tz-aware. https://github.com/pandas-dev/pandas/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3AReshaping+label%3ATimezones

but i'll mark it. if you want investigate what needs to be done to fix would be great.

[MikeSpreitzer]

Is there any work-around for this?

[mroeschke]

xref #19420

[ronid]

any update?

[mroeschke]

This looks to work on master now; could use a test.