DEPR: make Categorical.ravel() return Categorical

doc/source/whatsnew/v0.25.0.rst

@@ -762,6 +762,7 @@ Other deprecations
 - :meth:`Series.put` is deprecated. (:issue:`18262`)
 - :meth:`Index.item` and :meth:`Series.item` is deprecated. (:issue:`18262`)
 - :meth:`Index.contains` is deprecated. Use ``key in index`` (``__contains__``) instead (:issue:`17753`).
+- :meth:`Categorical.ravel` will return a :class:`Categorical` instead of a ``np.ndarray`` (:issue:`27199`)
 
 .. _whatsnew_0250.prior_deprecations:
 

pandas/core/arrays/base.py

@@ -908,6 +908,21 @@ def _formatting_values(self) -> np.ndarray:
     # Reshaping
     # ------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
+    def ravel(self, order="C") -> ABCExtensionArray:
+        """
+        Return a flattened view on this array.
+
+        Parameters
+        ----------
+        order : {None, 'C', 'F', 'A', 'K'}, default 'C'
+
+        Notes
+        -----
+        - Because ExtensionArrays are 1D-only, this is a no-op.
+        - The "order" argument is ignored, is for compatibility with NumPy.
+        """
+        return self
+
     @classmethod
     def _concat_same_type(
             cls,

pandas/core/arrays/categorical.py

@@ -1707,6 +1707,8 @@ def ravel(self, order='C'):
         -------
         numpy.array
         """
+        warn("Categorical.ravel will return a Categorical object instead "
+             "of an ndarray in a future version.", FutureWarning)
         return np.array(self)
 
     def view(self):

pandas/tests/extension/base/base.py

@@ -2,6 +2,9 @@
 
 
 class BaseExtensionTests:
+    # Whether the EA being tested supports __setitem__
+    _supports_setitem = True
+
     assert_equal = staticmethod(tm.assert_equal)
     assert_series_equal = staticmethod(tm.assert_series_equal)
     assert_frame_equal = staticmethod(tm.assert_frame_equal)

pandas/tests/extension/base/reshaping.py

@@ -269,3 +269,13 @@ def test_unstack(self, data, index, obj):
             result = result.astype(object)
 
             self.assert_frame_equal(result, expected)
+
+    def test_ravel(self, data):
+        # as long as EA is 1D-only, ravel is a no-op
+        result = data.ravel()
+        assert type(result) == type(data)
+
+        if self._supports_setitem:
+            # Check that we have a view, not a copy
+            result[0] = result[1]
+            assert data[0] == data[1]

pandas/tests/extension/test_categorical.py

@@ -94,7 +94,11 @@ class TestConstructors(base.BaseConstructorsTests):
 
 
 class TestReshaping(base.BaseReshapingTests):
-    pass
+
+    def test_ravel(self, data):
+        # GH#27199 Categorical.ravel returns self until after deprecation cycle
+        with pytest.warns(FutureWarning, match="will return a Categorical"):
+            data.ravel()
 
 
 class TestGetitem(base.BaseGetitemTests):

pandas/tests/extension/test_sparse.py

@@ -82,6 +82,7 @@ def data_for_grouping(request):
 
 
 class BaseSparseTests:
+    _supports_setitem = False
 
     def _check_unsupported(self, data):
         if data.dtype == SparseDtype(int, 0):