ENH: add limit_area argument to ffill() method as interpolate( method='ffill', limit_area='inside') as been deprecated

[j-carson]

Feature Type

• Adding new functionality to pandas

• Changing existing functionality in pandas

• Removing existing functionality in pandas

Problem Description

I am trying to clean up my FutureWarnings and there is no obvious replacement for interpolate( method='ffill', limit_area ='inside')

Feature Description

The limit_area argument to ffill() method would work as it does in the interpolate() method

Alternative Solutions

Maybe you could find the first and last row of valid data using notna() on the column and then null-out the rows that were accidentally filled by fillna?

Additional Context

The interpolate(method='ffill') is deprecated in issue #53581, but there is no provision made for users who were using limit_area = 'inside' in that PR

[rhshadrach]

It looks like the current implementation could expose limit_area as it's implemented at the block level (including for EABackedBlock).

@jbrockmendel - any thoughts to expanding the keywords of ffill and bfill?

[jbrockmendel]

Looks like that might be necessary, yah

[rhshadrach]

I should have time to take this up, want to get it into 2.2 because the behavior elsewhere has already been deprecated.