Pandas 1.0 no longer handles `numpy.str_`s as catgories

[flying-sheep]

Code Sample

import pandas as pd
pd.Categorical(['1', '0', '1'], [np.str_('0'), np.str_('1')])

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/home/angerer/Dev/Python/venvs/env-pandas-1/lib/python3.8/site-packages/pandas/core/arrays/categorical.py", line 385, in __init__
    codes = _get_codes_for_values(values, dtype.categories)
  File "/home/angerer/Dev/Python/venvs/env-pandas-1/lib/python3.8/site-packages/pandas/core/arrays/categorical.py", line 2576, in _get_codes_for_values
    t.map_locations(cats)
  File "pandas/_libs/hashtable_class_helper.pxi", line 1403, in pandas._libs.hashtable.StringHashTable.map_locations
TypeError: Expected unicode, got numpy.str_

Problem description

I know that having a list of numpy.str_s seems weird, but it easily happens when you use non-numpy algorithms on numpy arrays (e.g. natsort.natsorted in our case), or via comprehensions or so:

>>> np.array(['1', '0'])[0].__class__
<class 'numpy.str_'>
>>> [type(s) for s in np.array(['1', '0'])]
[<class 'numpy.str_'>, <class 'numpy.str_'>]

Expected Output

A normal pd.Categorical

Pandas version

pandas 1.0

[TomAugspurger]

This changed from 0.25.3?

Are you able to pin down what change caused it?

[jorisvandenbossche]

Yes, in 0.25.3 this worked.

At least, it gives a categorical with object categories with those numpy strings (but with Series constructor, we also preserve the numpy strings, and don't convert to python strings, so that seems the "expected" behaviour).

[jorisvandenbossche]

My guess is that it's related to #30419 which changed get_c_string implementation (which is used in StringHashTable to get the c string from the string object) cc @jbrockmendel

[jbrockmendel]

maybe if we're lucky it will be good enough to change L706 in hashtable_class_helper.pxi.in from v = get_c_string(val) to v = get_c_string(<str>val), but this is really a PITA because the previous line is precisely a check for isintance(val, str) which is True for np.str_ objects

[flying-sheep]

Yeah, it’s kinda shitty. I think implicit conversation would be better than a hard-to-interpret error here though.