PDEP-18: Nullable Object Dtype

[simonjayhawkins]

as per PDEP-1

The initial status of a PDEP will be Status: Draft. This will be changed to Status: Under discussion by the author(s), when they are ready to proceed with the decision making process.

but comments are surely welcome in the meantime.

[jbrockmendel]

“Object” analogous to “Float64”?

[datapythonista]

At least to me the PDEP will be easier to read (and comment on) if you limit the line width, to 80 or similar.

The idea sounds good, it'd be good if you can provide information on how using a boolean mask compares to having pandas.NA inside the main array.

[simonjayhawkins]

At least to me the PDEP will be easier to read (and comment on) if you limit the line width, to 80 or similar.

sure.

it'd be good if you can provide information on how using a boolean mask compares to having pandas.NA inside the main array.

using a sentinel as opposed to a mask is an implementation detail that I can expand on. I'm assuming that this would still be a separate dtype from the traditional numpy dtype, a pandas nullable dtype? We have the string array backed by a masked object array that I was effectively proposing reusing/refactoring as a base class.

There is also another option which is maybe what you are proposing: making a breaking change to the exisiting numpy object dtype to handle pd.NA differently? This is perhaps what is in the rejected ideas section and that needs clarification?

[simonjayhawkins]

“Object” analogous to “Float64”?

That's the obvious choice but IIRC the capitalization was considered as confusing/non intuitive by some when discussed with respect to the string dtype.