API/DEPR: 'periods' argument instead of 'n' for DatetimeIndex.shift()

doc/source/whatsnew/v0.24.0.txt

@@ -527,6 +527,7 @@ Datetimelike API Changes
 - :class:`PeriodIndex` subtraction of another ``PeriodIndex`` will now return an object-dtype :class:`Index` of :class:`DateOffset` objects instead of raising a ``TypeError`` (:issue:`20049`)
 - :func:`cut` and :func:`qcut` now returns a :class:`DatetimeIndex` or :class:`TimedeltaIndex` bins when the input is datetime or timedelta dtype respectively and ``retbins=True`` (:issue:`19891`)
 - :meth:`DatetimeIndex.to_period` and :meth:`Timestamp.to_period` will issue a warning when timezone information will be lost (:issue:`21333`)
+- :func:`shift` now accepts ``periods`` argument instead of ``n`` for consistency with `Index.shift` (:issue:`22458`)
 
 .. _whatsnew_0240.api.other:
 

pandas/core/arrays/datetimelike.py

@@ -521,40 +521,52 @@ def _addsub_offset_array(self, other, op):
             kwargs['freq'] = 'infer'
         return type(self)(res_values, **kwargs)
 
-    def shift(self, n, freq=None):
+    def shift(self, periods, freq=None):
         """
-        Specialized shift which produces a Datetime/Timedelta Array/Index
+        Shift index by desired number of time frequency increments.
+
+        This method is for shifting the values of datetime-like indexes
+        by a specified time increment a given number of times.
 
         Parameters
         ----------
-        n : int
-            Periods to shift by
-        freq : DateOffset or timedelta-like, optional
+        periods : int
+            Number of periods (or increments) to shift by,
+            can be positive or negative.
+        freq : pandas.DateOffset, pandas.Timedelta or string, optional
+            Frequency increment to shift by.
+            If None, the index is shifted by its own `freq` attribute.
+            Offset aliases are valid strings, e.g., 'D', 'W', 'M' etc.
 
         Returns
         -------
-        shifted : same type as self
+        pandas.DatetimeIndex
+            Shifted index.
+
+        See Also
+        --------
+        Index.shift : Shift values of Index.
         """
         if freq is not None and freq != self.freq:
             if isinstance(freq, compat.string_types):
                 freq = frequencies.to_offset(freq)
-            offset = n * freq
+            offset = periods * freq
             result = self + offset
 
             if hasattr(self, 'tz'):
                 result._tz = self.tz
 
             return result
 
-        if n == 0:
+        if periods == 0:
             # immutable so OK
             return self
 
         if self.freq is None:
             raise NullFrequencyError("Cannot shift with no freq")
 
-        start = self[0] + n * self.freq
-        end = self[-1] + n * self.freq
+        start = self[0] + periods * self.freq
+        end = self[-1] + periods * self.freq
         attribs = self._get_attributes_dict()
         return self._generate_range(start=start, end=end, periods=None,
                                     **attribs)

pandas/tests/indexes/datetimes/test_ops.py

@@ -540,6 +540,12 @@ def test_shift(self):
             shifted = rng.shift(1, freq=CDay())
             assert shifted[0] == rng[0] + CDay()
 
+    def test_shift_periods(self):
+        # GH #22458 :
+        idx = pd.DatetimeIndex(start=START, end=END,
+                               periods=3)
+        tm.assert_index_equal(idx.shift(periods=0), idx)
+
     def test_pickle_unpickle(self):
         unpickled = tm.round_trip_pickle(self.rng)
         assert unpickled.freq is not None