DOC: Unclear documentation of inplace parameter for rename function.

[subhrm]

• closes Unclear documentation of inplace parameter for pandas.DataFrame.rename. #23076
• tests added / passed
• passes git diff upstream/master -u -- "*.py" | flake8 --diff
• whatsnew entry

[pep8speaks]

Hello @subhrm! Thanks for updating the PR.

• There are no PEP8 issues in the file pandas/core/frame.py !

• There are no PEP8 issues in the file pandas/core/generic.py !

Comment last updated on October 12, 2018 at 12:36 Hours UTC

[codecov]

Codecov Report

Merging #23105 into master will increase coverage by <.01%.
The diff coverage is n/a.

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##           master   #23105      +/-   ##
==========================================
+ Coverage    92.2%    92.2%   +<.01%     
==========================================
  Files         169      169              
  Lines       50924    50944      +20     
==========================================
+ Hits        46952    46972      +20     
  Misses       3972     3972

Flag	Coverage Δ
#multiple	90.62% <ø> (ø)	⬆️
#single	42.29% <ø> (-0.01%)	⬇️

Impacted Files	Coverage Δ
pandas/core/frame.py	97.11% <ø> (ø)	⬆️
pandas/core/generic.py	96.65% <ø> (ø)	⬆️
pandas/core/arrays/categorical.py	95.62% <0%> (ø)	⬆️
pandas/core/series.py	93.76% <0%> (+0.01%)	⬆️
pandas/core/arrays/base.py	95.94% <0%> (+0.05%)	⬆️
pandas/core/arrays/integer.py	94.9% <0%> (+0.31%)	⬆️

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[datapythonista]

I don't think the new sentence is technically correct. The inplace parameter is misleading, and in many cases the DataFrame is not modified in place, but creating a copy that is assigned to the same variable.

Can you take a look at the parameter inplace of other methods and see what is being used there. It'd be nice to unify them actually (not in this PR).

[WillAyd]

Closing as stale and not sure this is a large enough improvement anyway. Please refer back to the original issue if you'd like to continue conversation going forward