BUG: clip should handle null values

doc/source/whatsnew/v0.21.0.txt

@@ -128,6 +128,7 @@ Other Enhancements
 - :func:`DataFrame.add_prefix` and :func:`DataFrame.add_suffix` now accept strings containing the '%' character. (:issue:`17151`)
 - `read_*` methods can now infer compression from non-string paths, such as ``pathlib.Path`` objects (:issue:`17206`).
 - :func:`pd.read_sas()` now recognizes much more of the most frequently used date (datetime) formats in SAS7BDAT files (:issue:`15871`).
+- :func:`Series.clip()` and `DataFrame.clip()` now treat NA values for upper and lower arguments as None instead of raising `ValueError` (:issue:`17276`).
 
 .. _whatsnew_0210.api_breaking:
 

pandas/core/generic.py

@@ -4660,9 +4660,6 @@ def _clip_with_one_bound(self, threshold, method, axis, inplace):
         if axis is not None:
             axis = self._get_axis_number(axis)
 
-        if np.any(isna(threshold)):
-            raise ValueError("Cannot use an NA value as a clip threshold")
-
         # method is self.le for upper bound and self.ge for lower bound
         if is_scalar(threshold) and is_number(threshold):
             if method.__name__ == 'le':
@@ -4742,6 +4739,12 @@ def clip(self, lower=None, upper=None, axis=None, inplace=False,
 
         axis = nv.validate_clip_with_axis(axis, args, kwargs)
 
+        # GH 17276
+        if np.any(pd.isnull(lower)):
+            lower = None
+        if np.any(pd.isnull(upper)):
+            upper = None
+
         # GH 2747 (arguments were reversed)
         if lower is not None and upper is not None:
             if is_scalar(lower) and is_scalar(upper):
@@ -4758,7 +4761,6 @@ def clip(self, lower=None, upper=None, axis=None, inplace=False,
         if upper is not None:
             if inplace:
                 result = self
-
             result = result.clip_upper(upper, axis, inplace=inplace)
 
         return result

pandas/tests/frame/test_analytics.py

@@ -1931,22 +1931,13 @@ def test_clip_against_frame(self, axis):
         tm.assert_frame_equal(clipped_df[ub_mask], ub[ub_mask])
         tm.assert_frame_equal(clipped_df[mask], df[mask])
 
-    def test_clip_na(self):
-        msg = "Cannot use an NA"
-        with tm.assert_raises_regex(ValueError, msg):
-            self.frame.clip(lower=np.nan)
-
-        with tm.assert_raises_regex(ValueError, msg):
-            self.frame.clip(lower=[np.nan])
-
-        with tm.assert_raises_regex(ValueError, msg):
-            self.frame.clip(upper=np.nan)
-
-        with tm.assert_raises_regex(ValueError, msg):
-            self.frame.clip(upper=[np.nan])
-
-        with tm.assert_raises_regex(ValueError, msg):
-            self.frame.clip(lower=np.nan, upper=np.nan)
+    def test_clip_with_na_args(self):
+        """Should process np.nan argument as None """
+        # GH # 17276
+        self.frame.clip(np.nan)
+        self.frame.clip(upper=[1, 2, np.nan])
+        self.frame.clip(lower=[1, np.nan, 3])
+        self.frame.clip(upper=np.nan, lower=np.nan)
 
     # Matrix-like
 

pandas/tests/series/test_analytics.py

@@ -1000,6 +1000,16 @@ def test_clip_types_and_nulls(self):
             assert list(isna(s)) == list(isna(l))
             assert list(isna(s)) == list(isna(u))
 
+    def test_clip_with_na_args(self):
+        """Should process np.nan argument as None """
+        # GH # 17276
+        s = Series([1, 2, 3])
+
+        s.clip(np.nan)
+        s.clip(upper=[1, 2, np.nan])
+        s.clip(lower=[1, np.nan, 3])
+        s.clip(upper=np.nan, lower=np.nan)
+
     def test_clip_against_series(self):
         # GH #6966