ENH: Preserve .names in df.set_index(df.index)

[qwhelan]

closes #6452.

This causes a slight change in behavior in @jseabold's second example. Previously, df.set_index(df.index) would convert a MultiIndex into an Index of tuples:

In [7]: from statsmodels.datasets import grunfeld

In [8]: data = sm.datasets.grunfeld.load_pandas().data

In [9]: data = data.set_index(['firm', 'year'])

In [10]: data.set_index(data.index).index.names
Out[10]: [None]

In [11]: data
Out[11]: 
<class 'pandas.core.frame.DataFrame'>
MultiIndex: 220 entries, (General Motors, 1935.0) to (American Steel, 1954.0)
Data columns (total 3 columns):
invest     220  non-null values
value      220  non-null values
capital    220  non-null values
dtypes: float64(3)

In [13]: data.set_index(data.index)
Out[13]: 
<class 'pandas.core.frame.DataFrame'>
Index: 220 entries, (General Motors, 1935.0) to (American Steel, 1954.0)
Data columns (total 3 columns):
invest     220  non-null values
value      220  non-null values
capital    220  non-null values
dtypes: float64(3)

This change makes it so the index remains a MultiIndex.

[jreback]

this is not the way to fix this
instead catch the case of a passed index and treat it like a series rather than the ndarray case

[qwhelan]

Treating it like a Series doesn't fix the issue described above. What should df.set_index([df.index, df.index]) return when the index is a MultiIndex? Currently (and in this patch), this would create an Index of two pairs of tuples.

The more correct behavior, in my opinion, would be to return a 4-level MultiIndex. This would require treating the MultiIndex as a DataFrame here or modify from_arrays to detect this case (presumably undesirable).

[qwhelan]

@jreback This newest commit is what I'm thinking. Let me know if there's a more elegant way to get the columns out of a MultiIndex.

[qwhelan]

@jreback, thanks for the suggestions. Most recent commit has those changes.

[jreback]

looks good. can you add a note to release.rst and v0.14.0.txt both in the API sections, reference this issue and provide a short explanation (prob just a 1-liner - fi you think more is warranted you can do this in v0.14.0.txt with an example - but only if not clear what the change does)

[qwhelan]

@jreback Added to notes and rebased. Sorry for the delay - I've been sick the last few days.

[jreback]

use self.assertEquals for these rather than a bare assert

[qwhelan]

@jreback Added an example to whatsnew. Let me know if you'd like this branch squashed/rebased.

[jreback]

looks good
pls squash down to 1-2 commits and good to merge

[qwhelan]

Alright, squashed and rebased.

[jreback]

thanks!