BUG: IntervalIndex, PeriodIndex, DatetimeIndex symmetric_difference with Categorical (#38741)

Author: jbrockmendel

doc/source/whatsnew/v1.3.0.rst

@@ -190,6 +190,7 @@ Datetimelike
 - Bug in :class:`DataFrame` and :class:`Series` constructors sometimes dropping nanoseconds from :class:`Timestamp` (resp. :class:`Timedelta`) ``data``, with ``dtype=datetime64[ns]`` (resp. ``timedelta64[ns]``) (:issue:`38032`)
 - Bug in :meth:`DataFrame.first` and :meth:`Series.first` returning two months for offset one month when first day is last calendar day (:issue:`29623`)
 - Bug in constructing a :class:`DataFrame` or :class:`Series` with mismatched ``datetime64`` data and ``timedelta64`` dtype, or vice-versa, failing to raise ``TypeError`` (:issue:`38575`)
+- Bug in :meth:`DatetimeIndex.intersection`, :meth:`DatetimeIndex.symmetric_difference`, :meth:`PeriodIndex.intersection`, :meth:`PeriodIndex.symmetric_difference` always returning object-dtype when operating with :class:`CategoricalIndex` (:issue:`38741`)
 
 Timedelta
 ^^^^^^^^^
@@ -221,7 +222,7 @@ Strings
 
 Interval
 ^^^^^^^^
-- Bug in :meth:`IntervalIndex.intersection` always returning object-dtype when intersecting with :class:`CategoricalIndex` (:issue:`38653`)
+- Bug in :meth:`IntervalIndex.intersection` and :meth:`IntervalIndex.symmetric_difference` always returning object-dtype when operating with :class:`CategoricalIndex` (:issue:`38653`, :issue:`38741`)
 -
 -
 

pandas/core/indexes/base.py

@@ -2606,6 +2606,7 @@ def _validate_sort_keyword(self, sort):
                 f"None or False; {sort} was passed."
             )
 
+    @final
     def union(self, other, sort=None):
         """
         Form the union of two Index objects.
@@ -2818,6 +2819,7 @@ def _wrap_setop_result(self, other, result):
             return self._shallow_copy(result, name=name)
 
     # TODO: standardize return type of non-union setops type(self vs other)
+    @final
     def intersection(self, other, sort=False):
         """
         Form the intersection of two Index objects.
@@ -3035,9 +3037,17 @@ def symmetric_difference(self, other, result_name=None, sort=None):
         if result_name is None:
             result_name = result_name_update
 
+        if not self._should_compare(other):
+            return self.union(other).rename(result_name)
+        elif not is_dtype_equal(self.dtype, other.dtype):
+            dtype = find_common_type([self.dtype, other.dtype])
+            this = self.astype(dtype, copy=False)
+            that = other.astype(dtype, copy=False)
+            return this.symmetric_difference(that, sort=sort).rename(result_name)
+
         this = self._get_unique_index()
         other = other._get_unique_index()
-        indexer = this.get_indexer(other)
+        indexer = this.get_indexer_for(other)
 
         # {this} minus {other}
         common_indexer = indexer.take((indexer != -1).nonzero()[0])
@@ -3057,7 +3067,7 @@ def symmetric_difference(self, other, result_name=None, sort=None):
             except TypeError:
                 pass
 
-        return Index(the_diff, dtype=self.dtype, name=result_name)
+        return Index(the_diff, name=result_name)
 
     def _assert_can_do_setop(self, other):
         if not is_list_like(other):

pandas/core/indexes/interval.py

@@ -1016,7 +1016,6 @@ def func(self, other, sort=sort):
 
     _union = _setop("union")
     difference = _setop("difference")
-    symmetric_difference = _setop("symmetric_difference")
 
     # --------------------------------------------------------------------
 

pandas/core/indexes/period.py

@@ -14,10 +14,8 @@
 from pandas.core.dtypes.common import (
     is_bool_dtype,
     is_datetime64_any_dtype,
-    is_dtype_equal,
     is_float,
     is_integer,
-    is_object_dtype,
     is_scalar,
     pandas_dtype,
 )
@@ -635,16 +633,6 @@ def _setop(self, other, sort, opname: str):
     def _intersection(self, other, sort=False):
         return self._setop(other, sort, opname="intersection")
 
-    def _difference(self, other, sort):
-
-        if is_object_dtype(other):
-            return self.astype(object).difference(other).astype(self.dtype)
-
-        elif not is_dtype_equal(self.dtype, other.dtype):
-            return self
-
-        return self._setop(other, sort, opname="difference")
-
     def _union(self, other, sort):
         return self._setop(other, sort, opname="_union")
 

pandas/tests/indexes/interval/test_setops.py

@@ -158,6 +158,7 @@ def test_symmetric_difference(self, closed, sort):
             index.left.astype("float64"), index.right, closed=closed
         )
         result = index.symmetric_difference(other, sort=sort)
+        expected = empty_index(dtype="float64", closed=closed)
         tm.assert_index_equal(result, expected)
 
     @pytest.mark.parametrize(

pandas/tests/indexes/test_setops.py

@@ -248,13 +248,14 @@ def test_symmetric_difference(self, index):
         # GH#10149
         cases = [klass(second.values) for klass in [np.array, Series, list]]
         for case in cases:
+            result = first.symmetric_difference(case)
+
             if is_datetime64tz_dtype(first):
-                with pytest.raises(ValueError, match="Tz-aware"):
-                    # `second.values` casts to tznaive
-                    # TODO: should the symmetric_difference then be the union?
-                    first.symmetric_difference(case)
+                # second.values casts to tznaive
+                expected = first.union(case)
+                tm.assert_index_equal(result, expected)
                 continue
-            result = first.symmetric_difference(case)
+
             assert tm.equalContents(result, answer)
 
         if isinstance(index, MultiIndex):
@@ -448,7 +449,9 @@ def test_intersection_difference_match_empty(self, index, sort):
         tm.assert_index_equal(inter, diff, exact=True)
 
 
-@pytest.mark.parametrize("method", ["intersection", "union"])
+@pytest.mark.parametrize(
+    "method", ["intersection", "union", "difference", "symmetric_difference"]
+)
 def test_setop_with_categorical(index, sort, method):
     if isinstance(index, MultiIndex):
         # tested separately in tests.indexes.multi.test_setops