Series to_string does not show index name

[cancan101]

The standard repr for a Series shows the index name:

repr(pd.Series([1], index=pd.Index(["a"], name="idx")))

idx
a      1
dtype: int64

but to_string does not:

pd.Series([1], index=pd.Index(["a"], name="idx")).to_string(name=True)

a      1

[jreback]

I believe it was designed this way and is not a bug

[cancan101]

Any reason to not at least have a parameter for to_string to print the index name?

[jreback]

what is the use case?

[dsm054]

Aside: the parameter names floating around there could be much more informative. I couldn't figure out if there was a names/name typo here or not.

        if is_multi:
            have_header = any(name for name in index.names)
            fmt_index = index.format(names=True)
        else:
            have_header = index.name is not None
            fmt_index = index.format(name=True)

[cancan101]

The biggest use case is in the case of a multiindex where having the labels on the various indexes is very helpful.

[jreback]

their is an open issue about repr for mi

why don't u add this their as that's a more appropriate context

[jtratner]

@dsm054 - that could actually be refractored to just refer to names now (feel free to submit a PR - I'll turn it around quickly 😄). Unifying the Index API such that regular Index is just a single level MI is planned for 0.14, the name/names distinction is to enable more intuitive (and backwards compatible) syntax when setting the name of regular Index.

[cancan101]

@jreback Which open issue are you referring to?

[jreback]

related to #5120
iIIRC

[cancan101]

@jreback That issue is closed and I don't think the fix addressed this specific issue.

[jreback]

this belongs as an enhancement in a displaying a multi index not as a standalone
I'll leave u to figure out which one

[jreback]

This is already possible in master (IIRC recently fixed though)

In [12]: s = pd.Series([1], index=pd.Index(["a"], name="idx"),name='foo')

In [13]: s
Out[13]: 
idx
a    1
Name: foo, dtype: int64

In [14]: s.to_string(name=True,header=True,length=True)
Out[14]: u'idx\na    1\nName: foo, Length: 1'