ValueError when applying a function that returns a list or tuple to a DataFrame that contains a Timestamp

Code Sample, a copy-pastable example if possible

Executing

import pandas as pd

df = pd.DataFrame({'a':[pd.Timestamp('2010-02-01'),
                        pd.Timestamp('2010-02-04'),
                        pd.Timestamp('2010-02-05'),
                        pd.Timestamp('2010-02-06')],
                   'b':[9,5,4,3], 'c':[5,3,4,2], 'd':[1,2,3,4]})

def fun(x):
    return (1,2)

df.apply(fun, axis=1)

raises an exception

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ValueError                                Traceback (most recent call last)
/Users/wilmat01/anaconda/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pandas/core/internals.py in create_block_manager_from_arrays(arrays, names, axes)
   4309         blocks = form_blocks(arrays, names, axes)
-> 4310         mgr = BlockManager(blocks, axes)
   4311         mgr._consolidate_inplace()

/Users/wilmat01/anaconda/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pandas/core/internals.py in __init__(self, blocks, axes, do_integrity_check, fastpath)
   2794         if do_integrity_check:
-> 2795             self._verify_integrity()
   2796 

/Users/wilmat01/anaconda/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pandas/core/internals.py in _verify_integrity(self)
   3005             if block._verify_integrity and block.shape[1:] != mgr_shape[1:]:
-> 3006                 construction_error(tot_items, block.shape[1:], self.axes)
   3007         if len(self.items) != tot_items:

/Users/wilmat01/anaconda/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pandas/core/internals.py in construction_error(tot_items, block_shape, axes, e)
   4279     raise ValueError("Shape of passed values is {0}, indices imply {1}".format(
-> 4280         passed, implied))
   4281 

ValueError: Shape of passed values is (4, 2), indices imply (4, 4)

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

ValueError                                Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-26-7b305f7b3474> in <module>()
      8     return (1,2)
      9 
---> 10 df.apply(fun, axis=1)

/Users/wilmat01/anaconda/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pandas/core/frame.py in apply(self, func, axis, broadcast, raw, reduce, args, **kwds)
   4260                         f, axis,
   4261                         reduce=reduce,
-> 4262                         ignore_failures=ignore_failures)
   4263             else:
   4264                 return self._apply_broadcast(f, axis)

/Users/wilmat01/anaconda/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pandas/core/frame.py in _apply_standard(self, func, axis, ignore_failures, reduce)
   4373                 index = None
   4374 
-> 4375             result = self._constructor(data=results, index=index)
   4376             result.columns = res_index
   4377 

/Users/wilmat01/anaconda/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pandas/core/frame.py in __init__(self, data, index, columns, dtype, copy)
    273                                  dtype=dtype, copy=copy)
    274         elif isinstance(data, dict):
--> 275             mgr = self._init_dict(data, index, columns, dtype=dtype)
    276         elif isinstance(data, ma.MaskedArray):
    277             import numpy.ma.mrecords as mrecords

/Users/wilmat01/anaconda/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pandas/core/frame.py in _init_dict(self, data, index, columns, dtype)
    409             arrays = [data[k] for k in keys]
    410 
--> 411         return _arrays_to_mgr(arrays, data_names, index, columns, dtype=dtype)
    412 
    413     def _init_ndarray(self, values, index, columns, dtype=None, copy=False):

/Users/wilmat01/anaconda/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pandas/core/frame.py in _arrays_to_mgr(arrays, arr_names, index, columns, dtype)
   5504     axes = [_ensure_index(columns), _ensure_index(index)]
   5505 
-> 5506     return create_block_manager_from_arrays(arrays, arr_names, axes)
   5507 
   5508 

/Users/wilmat01/anaconda/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pandas/core/internals.py in create_block_manager_from_arrays(arrays, names, axes)
   4312         return mgr
   4313     except ValueError as e:
-> 4314         construction_error(len(arrays), arrays[0].shape, axes, e)
   4315 
   4316 

/Users/wilmat01/anaconda/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pandas/core/internals.py in construction_error(tot_items, block_shape, axes, e)
   4278         raise ValueError("Empty data passed with indices specified.")
   4279     raise ValueError("Shape of passed values is {0}, indices imply {1}".format(
-> 4280         passed, implied))
   4281 
   4282 

ValueError: Shape of passed values is (4, 2), indices imply (4, 4)

Problem description

• I see the same problem when fun returns a list (e.g. [1,2]) rather than tuple.
• The error does not occur when apply is called with axis=0.
• The error does not occur when I replace the Timestamp column with a column of integers.

Expected Output

A pandas Series containing tuples:

0    (1, 2)
1    (1, 2)
2    (1, 2)
3    (1, 2)
dtype: object

Output of pd.show_versions()

[paste the output of pd.show_versions() here below this line]

INSTALLED VERSIONS

commit: None
python: 3.6.1.final.0
python-bits: 64
OS: Darwin
OS-release: 16.7.0
machine: x86_64
processor: i386
byteorder: little
LC_ALL: None
LANG: en_GB.UTF-8
LOCALE: en_GB.UTF-8

pandas: 0.20.3
pytest: 3.0.7
pip: 9.0.1
setuptools: 27.2.0
Cython: 0.25.2
numpy: 1.13.3
scipy: 0.19.0
xarray: None
IPython: 5.3.0
sphinx: 1.5.6
patsy: 0.4.1
dateutil: 2.6.1
pytz: 2017.2
blosc: None
bottleneck: 1.2.1
tables: 3.3.0
numexpr: 2.6.2
feather: 0.4.0
matplotlib: 2.0.2
openpyxl: 2.4.7
xlrd: 1.0.0
xlwt: 1.2.0
xlsxwriter: 0.9.6
lxml: 3.7.3
bs4: 4.6.0
html5lib: 0.9999999
sqlalchemy: 1.1.9
pymysql: None
psycopg2: None
jinja2: 2.9.6
s3fs: None
pandas_gbq: None
pandas_datareader: None

[jreback]

duplicate of #16353 and #15628

.apply infers the output dimension based on what you are returning, which looks exactly like a Series. This is not idiomatic pandas, not to mention non-performant.

[kmader]

I have the same issue (see code below). The top frame (s_df) works perfectly and the bottom one doesn't work at all. The inconsistency of behavior is what I find a bit troubling because adding a column shouldn't change how .apply works. While this contrived example is very simplified, it is based a real issue where I have a number of date columns that I want to create new columns based on relationships between them (warranty_valid = purchase_date-claim_date<180 days). Is there a more idiomatic pandas way to this?

import pandas as pd
s_df = pd.DataFrame(dict(a = [1,2]))
print(s_df.apply(lambda x: [1,2,3],1))
t_df = pd.DataFrame(dict(a = [1,2], b = pd.to_datetime(['2017-10-%02d' % i for i in [1,2]])))
print(t_df.apply(lambda x: [1,2,3],1))