DOC: `pandas.json_normalize` missing from API Reference portion of documentation

[TimelikeClosure]

Location of the documentation

https://pandas.pydata.org/docs/dev/reference/api/pandas.json_normalize.html (currently responds with a 404 Not Found)

Documentation problem

While the source code does contain API reference documentation for pandas.json_normalize (previously pandas.io.json.json_normalize) as seen in /pandas/io/json/_normalize.py, it isn't available in the documentation for the current version of pandas hosted on pandas.pydata.org.

Suggested fix for documentation

At least one older version of pandas does have documentation that includes a json_normalize API reference under its old name (pandas.io.json.json_normalize in v0.25.0), so it seems feasible that it was removed by accident when its old name was deprecated in v1.0.0. Attempting to visit pandas.io.json.json_normalize in the current version of the documentation redirects to the new name (pandas.json_normalize), which responds with a 404.

[rhshadrach]

Edit: This comment is incorrect, within pandas.__init__ is the line:

from pandas.io.json import _json_normalize as json_normalize

Thanks for the report! The method referenced is _json_normalize, the leading underscore indicating that is is internal and not meant for users.

[tilusnet]

Pandas 1.2.5 still had the API documentation available: https://pandas.pydata.org/pandas-docs/version/1.2.5/reference/api/pandas.json_normalize.html

Yet the latest version still has json_normalize documented in the User Guide section: https://pandas.pydata.org/docs/user_guide/io.html#normalization

The missing API entry is surely a mistake then?

[haakenlid]

Thanks for the report! The method referenced is _json_normalize, the leading underscore indicating that is is internal and not meant for users.

It's exposed as pandas.json_normalize in the top level namespace, and it certainly is meant for users.

https://github.com/pandas-dev/pandas/blob/master/pandas/__init__.py#L170

[haakenlid]

Here's a commit removing it from the docs, claiming it's deprecated.

47f90ed

I can't find any explanation of what that is supposed to mean.

[rhshadrach]

Thanks for following up on this @haakenlid - my comment above was incorrect (and is now edited). In 1.0.0 pandas.io.json_normalize was deprecated in favor of pandas.json_normalize

https://pandas.pydata.org/pandas-docs/version/1.0.0/whatsnew/v1.0.0.html#deprecations
#27615

So the commit you found was right in that it should be removed from io, but it needs to be added to the docs from pandas namespace. A PR to fix this is most welcome!