pandas.DatetimeIndex frequency is None and can't be set

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I created a DatetimeIndex from a "date" column:

sales.index = pd.DatetimeIndex(sales["date"])

Now the index looks as follows:

DatetimeIndex(['2003-01-02', '2003-01-03', '2003-01-04', '2003-01-06',
                   '2003-01-07', '2003-01-08', '2003-01-09', '2003-01-10',
                   '2003-01-11', '2003-01-13',
                   ...
                   '2016-07-22', '2016-07-23', '2016-07-24', '2016-07-25',
                   '2016-07-26', '2016-07-27', '2016-07-28', '2016-07-29',
                   '2016-07-30', '2016-07-31'],
                  dtype='datetime64[ns]', name='date', length=4393, freq=None)

As you see, the freq attribute is None. I suspect that errors down the road are caused by the missing freq. However, if I try to set the frequency explicitly:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ValueError                                Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-148-30857144de81> in <module>()
      1 #### DEBUG
----> 2 sales_train = disentangle(df_train)
      3 sales_holdout = disentangle(df_holdout)
      4 result = sarima_fit_predict(sales_train.loc[5002, 9990]["amount_sold"], sales_holdout.loc[5002, 9990]["amount_sold"])

<ipython-input-147-08b4c4ecdea3> in disentangle(df_train)
      2     # transform sales table to disentangle sales time series
      3     sales = df_train[["date", "store_id", "article_id", "amount_sold"]]
----> 4     sales.index = pd.DatetimeIndex(sales["date"], freq="d")
      5     sales = sales.pivot_table(index=["store_id", "article_id", "date"])
      6     return sales

/usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pandas/util/_decorators.py in wrapper(*args, **kwargs)
     89                 else:
     90                     kwargs[new_arg_name] = new_arg_value
---> 91             return func(*args, **kwargs)
     92         return wrapper
     93     return _deprecate_kwarg

/usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pandas/core/indexes/datetimes.py in __new__(cls, data, freq, start, end, periods, copy, name, tz, verify_integrity, normalize, closed, ambiguous, dtype, **kwargs)
    399                                          'dates does not conform to passed '
    400                                          'frequency {1}'
--> 401                                          .format(inferred, freq.freqstr))
    402 
    403         if freq_infer:

ValueError: Inferred frequency None from passed dates does not conform to passed frequency D

So apparently a frequency has been inferred, but is stored neither in the freq nor inferred_freq attribute of the DatetimeIndex - both are None. Can someone clear up the confusion?

pandas time-series indexing python
5 Answers

I'm not sure if earlier versions of python have this, but 3.6 has this simple solution:

# 'b' stands for business days
# 'w' for weekly, 'd' for daily, and you get the idea...
df.index.freq = 'b'
user_29702720

It could happen if for examples the dates you are passing aren't sorted.

Look at this example:

example_ts = pd.Series(data=range(10),
                       index=pd.date_range('2020-01-01', '2020-01-10', freq='D'))
example_ts.index = pd.DatetimeIndex(np.hstack([example_ts.index[-1:],
                                               example_ts.index[:-1]]), freq='D')

The previous code goes into your error, because of the non-sequential dates.

example_ts = pd.Series(data=range(10),
                       index=pd.date_range('2020-01-01', '2020-01-10', freq='D'))
example_ts.index = pd.DatetimeIndex(np.hstack([example_ts.index[:-1],
                                               example_ts.index[-1:]]), freq='D')

This one runs correctly, instead.

user_148202120
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