DEPR: deprecate .select() in favor of .loc(axis=)[]

closes #12401

doc/source/whatsnew/v0.21.0.txt

@@ -667,6 +667,31 @@ Deprecations
 - passing ``categories`` or ``ordered`` kwargs to :func:`Series.astype` is deprecated, in favor of passing a :ref:`CategoricalDtype <whatsnew_0210.enhancements.categorical_dtype>` (:issue:`17636`)
 - Passing a non-existant column in ``.to_excel(..., columns=)`` is deprecated and will raise a ``KeyError`` in the future (:issue:`17295`)
 
+.. _whatsnew_0210.deprecations.select:
+
+Series.select and DataFrame.select
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+The :meth:`Series.select` and :meth:`DataFrame.select` methods are deprecated in favor of using ``df.loc[labels.map(crit)]`` (:issue:`12401`)
+
+.. ipython:: python
+
+   df = DataFrame({'A': [1, 2, 3]}, index=['foo', 'bar', 'baz'])
+
+.. code-block:: ipython
+
+   In [3]: df.select(lambda x: x in ['bar', 'baz'])
+   FutureWarning: select is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. You can use .loc[crit] as a replacement
+   Out[3]:
+        A
+   bar  2
+   baz  3
+
+.. ipython:: python
+
+   df.loc[df.index.map(lambda x: x in ['bar', 'baz'])]
+
+
 .. _whatsnew_0210.deprecations.argmin_min:
 
 Series.argmax and Series.argmin

pandas/core/common.py

@@ -445,9 +445,17 @@ def _apply_if_callable(maybe_callable, obj, **kwargs):
     """
     Evaluate possibly callable input using obj and kwargs if it is callable,
     otherwise return as it is
+
+    Parameters
+    ----------
+    maybe_callable : possibly a callable
+    obj : NDFrame
+    **kwargs
     """
+
     if callable(maybe_callable):
         return maybe_callable(obj, **kwargs)
+
     return maybe_callable
 
 

pandas/core/generic.py

@@ -2339,6 +2339,8 @@ def select(self, crit, axis=0):
         """
         Return data corresponding to axis labels matching criteria
 
+        DEPRECATED: use df.loc[df.index.map(crit)] to select via labels
+
         Parameters
         ----------
         crit : function
@@ -2349,6 +2351,11 @@ def select(self, crit, axis=0):
         -------
         selection : type of caller
         """
+        warnings.warn("'select' is deprecated and will be removed in a "
+                      "future release. You can use "
+                      ".loc[labels.map(crit)] as a replacement",
+                      FutureWarning, stacklevel=2)
+
         axis = self._get_axis_number(axis)
         axis_name = self._get_axis_name(axis)
         axis_values = self._get_axis(axis)
@@ -3101,7 +3108,7 @@ def filter(self, items=None, like=None, regex=None, axis=None):
 
         See Also
         --------
-        pandas.DataFrame.select
+        pandas.DataFrame.loc
 
         Notes
         -----
@@ -3120,20 +3127,23 @@ def filter(self, items=None, like=None, regex=None, axis=None):
 
         if axis is None:
             axis = self._info_axis_name
-        axis_name = self._get_axis_name(axis)
-        axis_values = self._get_axis(axis_name)
+        labels = self._get_axis(axis)
 
         if items is not None:
-            return self.reindex(**{axis_name:
-                                   [r for r in items if r in axis_values]})
+            name = self._get_axis_name(axis)
+            return self.reindex(
+                **{name: [r for r in items if r in labels]})
         elif like:
-            matchf = lambda x: (like in x if isinstance(x, string_types) else
-                                like in str(x))
-            return self.select(matchf, axis=axis_name)
+            def f(x):
+                if not isinstance(x, string_types):
+                    x = str(x)
+                return like in x
+            values = labels.map(f)
+            return self.loc(axis=axis)[values]
         elif regex:
             matcher = re.compile(regex)
-            return self.select(lambda x: matcher.search(str(x)) is not None,
-                               axis=axis_name)
+            values = labels.map(lambda x: matcher.search(str(x)) is not None)
+            return self.loc(axis=axis)[values]
         else:
             raise TypeError('Must pass either `items`, `like`, or `regex`')