Series.combine with fill_value gives unexpected results

[jamesharrop]

Code Sample, a copy-pastable example if possible

import pandas as pd

a = pd.Series([1, 2, 3], index=["a", "b", "c"])
b = pd.Series([10, 20, 30], index=[0, "e", "f"])
c = b.combine(a, lambda x,y: x+y, fill_value=0)
print(c)

Problem description

This gives the output:
0 11
a 1
b 2
c 3
e 20
f 30
dtype: int64

Expected Output

0 10
a 1
b 2
c 3
e 20
f 30
dtype: int64

With higher numbers in the index it gives expected output i.e.:

a = pd.Series([1, 2, 3], index=["a", "b", "c"])
b = pd.Series([10, 20, 30], index=[4, "e", "f"])
c = b.combine(a, lambda x,y: x+y, fill_value=0)
print(c)

4 10
a 1
b 2
c 3
e 20
f 30
dtype: int64

Output of pd.show_versions()

INSTALLED VERSIONS ------------------ commit : None python : 3.7.6.final.0 python-bits : 64 OS : Windows OS-release : 10 machine : AMD64 processor : Intel64 Family 6 Model 142 Stepping 10, GenuineIntel byteorder : little LC_ALL : None LANG : None LOCALE : None.None

pandas : 0.25.3
numpy : 1.18.1
pytz : 2019.3
dateutil : 2.8.1
pip : 19.3.1
setuptools : 44.0.0.post20200106
Cython : 0.29.14
pytest : 5.3.2
hypothesis : 4.54.2
sphinx : 2.3.1
blosc : None
feather : None
xlsxwriter : 1.2.7
lxml.etree : 4.4.2
html5lib : 1.0.1
pymysql : None
psycopg2 : None
jinja2 : 2.10.3
IPython : 7.11.1
pandas_datareader: None
bs4 : 4.8.2
bottleneck : 1.3.1
fastparquet : None
gcsfs : None
lxml.etree : 4.4.2
matplotlib : 3.1.1
numexpr : 2.7.0
odfpy : None
openpyxl : 3.0.2
pandas_gbq : None
pyarrow : None
pytables : None
s3fs : None
scipy : 1.3.2
sqlalchemy : 1.3.12
tables : 3.6.1
xarray : None
xlrd : 1.2.0
xlwt : 1.3.0
xlsxwriter : 1.2.7
​

[MarcoGorelli]

Thanks for the report!

Can confirm this reproduces on master, are you interesting in investigating why this might be happening / submitting a pull request?

[jamesharrop]

Thanks for your reply. Yes I'll go ahead and investigate it.

[jamesharrop]

It looks like:
def combine(self, other, func, fill_value=None) -> "Series"
checks for key values by using:
def get(self, key, default=None)
which uses self[key]
which will accept an index value instead of a key and unexpectedly return the item at that index.

I could submit a pull request changing it to self.loc[key] but I don't know if that would cause problems elsewhere?

[MarcoGorelli]

I don't know if that would cause problems elsewhere?

I haven't had a look at this yet so I don't know, but to check locally whether this'll break any existing functionality you can run

pytest pandas

[jamesharrop]

Thanks, the tests produce about 20 errors, at least some of them because they expect .get(key) to accept index values. I will think about other options

[jamesharrop]

Could add another get function which uses .loc which is stricter about accepting keys only, this does work without errors locally but is not very elegant. I could submit as a pull request for review

[MarcoGorelli]

I could submit as a pull request for review

Go ahead :) Please refer to the contributing guide if you're unsure how to get started