ENH: can pass valid pytz timezone name to date_range, DatetimeIndex close #1089

Author: wesm

pandas/core/datetools.py

@@ -90,7 +90,9 @@ def to_datetime(arg, errors='ignore', dayfirst=False):
                                         raise_=errors == 'raise',
                                         dayfirst=dayfirst)
         return Series(values, index=arg.index, name=arg.name)
-    elif isinstance(arg, np.ndarray):
+    elif isinstance(arg, (np.ndarray, list)):
+        if isinstance(arg, list):
+            arg = np.array(arg, dtype='O')
         return lib.string_to_datetime(com._ensure_object(arg),
                                       raise_=errors == 'raise',
                                       dayfirst=dayfirst)
@@ -2216,6 +2218,10 @@ def _figure_out_timezone(start, end, tzinfo):
         assert(inferred_tz == tzinfo)
         # make tz naive for now
 
+    if isinstance(tz, (str, unicode)):
+        import pytz
+        tz = pytz.timezone(tz)
+
     start = start if start is None else start.replace(tzinfo=None)
     end = end if end is None else end.replace(tzinfo=None)
 

pandas/core/index.py

@@ -1228,7 +1228,7 @@ def __new__(cls, data=None,
                           "please use 'freq' instead",
                           FutureWarning)
             if isinstance(freq, basestring):
-                freq = datetools.getOffset(freq)
+                freq = datetools.get_offset(freq)
         else:
             if isinstance(freq, basestring):
                 freq = datetools.to_offset(freq)

pandas/tests/test_timeseries.py

@@ -877,6 +877,14 @@ def test_asobject_tz_box(self):
         result = index.asobject
         self.assert_(result[0].tz is tz)
 
+    def test_tz_string(self):
+        _skip_if_no_pytz()
+        result = date_range('1/1/2000', periods=10, tz='US/Eastern')
+        expected = date_range('1/1/2000', periods=10,
+                              tz=pytz.timezone('US/Eastern'))
+
+        self.assert_(result.equals(expected))
+
     def test_datetimeindex_constructor(self):
         arr = ['1/1/2005', '1/2/2005', 'Jn 3, 2005', '2005-01-04']
         self.assertRaises(Exception, DatetimeIndex, arr)