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DOC: update Series() docstring about copy behaviour #63341

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jorisvandenbossche merged 5 commits into from
Dec 14, 2025
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DOC: update Series() docstring about copy behaviour #63341

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DOC: update Series() docstring about copy behaviour
jorisvandenbossche Dec 12, 2025
ee645f0
rephrase
jorisvandenbossche Dec 12, 2025
17389bf
Update pandas/core/series.py
jorisvandenbossche Dec 14, 2025
bc69338
Merge remote-tracking branch 'upstream/main' into cow-doc-series-copy
jorisvandenbossche Dec 14, 2025
2d38fc4
rephrase
jorisvandenbossche Dec 14, 2025
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10 changes: 8 additions & 2 deletions pandas/core/series.py
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Expand Up @@ -265,8 +265,14 @@ class Series(base.IndexOpsMixin, NDFrame): # type: ignore[misc]
See the :ref:`user guide <basics.dtypes>` for more usages.
name : Hashable, default None
The name to give to the Series.
copy : bool, default False
Copy input data. Only affects Series or 1d ndarray input. See examples.
copy : bool, default None
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@jorisvandenbossche jorisvandenbossche Dec 12, 2025 •
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Related to #63144, the question is what to put here in the docstring ..

copy=None is closest to what is in the signature, but is not really meaningful by itself. Of course, the behaviour also depends on the intput, so writing that it defaults to either True or False will also be misleading for some cases.
(eg the current default False in the docstring above is not correct for array input)

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@rhshadrach rhshadrach Dec 12, 2025

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I'm fine with None here, I think the behavior is too complex to give a meaningful description in the space allowed.

Whether to copy input data, only relevant for array, Series, and Index
inputs (for other input, e.g. a list, a new array is created anyway).
Defaults to True for array input and False for Index/Series.
Even when False for Index/Series, a shallow copy of the data is made.
Set to False to avoid copying array input at your own risk (if you
know the input data won't be modified elsewhere).
Set to True to force copying Series/Index input up front.
See Also
--------
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