feat: Add support for DataFrame.clear method

docs/api-reference/dataframe.md

@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@
       members:
         - __arrow_c_stream__
         - __getitem__
+        - clear
         - clone
         - collect_schema
         - columns

narwhals/_arrow/dataframe.py

@@ -758,4 +758,11 @@ def unpivot(
         # TODO(Unassigned): Even with promote_options="permissive", pyarrow does not
         # upcast numeric to non-numeric (e.g. string) datatypes
 
+    def clear(self, n: int) -> Self:
+        schema = self.native.schema
+        data = {
+            name: pa.nulls(n, dtype) for name, dtype in zip(schema.names, schema.types)
+        }
+        return self._with_native(pa.table(data))
+
     pivot = not_implemented()

narwhals/_compliant/dataframe.py

@@ -151,6 +151,7 @@ def columns(self) -> Sequence[str]: ...
     def schema(self) -> Mapping[str, DType]: ...
     @property
     def shape(self) -> tuple[int, int]: ...
+    def clear(self, n: int) -> Self: ...
     def clone(self) -> Self: ...
     def collect(
         self, backend: Implementation | None, **kwargs: Any

narwhals/_pandas_like/dataframe.py

@@ -1137,3 +1137,14 @@ def explode(self, columns: Sequence[str]) -> Self:
                 plx.concat([exploded_frame, *exploded_series], axis=1)[original_columns],
                 validate_column_names=False,
             )
+
+    def clear(self, n: int) -> Self:
+        if n == 0:
+            return self.head(0)
+
+        ns = self.__native_namespace__()
+
+        native_dtypes = self.native.dtypes
+        schema = {col: native_dtypes[col] for col in self.native.columns}
+        result = ns.DataFrame(ns.NA, index=range(n), columns=self.columns).astype(schema)
+        return self._with_native(result)

narwhals/_polars/dataframe.py

@@ -66,6 +66,7 @@
 # DataFrame methods where PolarsDataFrame just defers to Polars.DataFrame directly.
 INHERITED_METHODS = frozenset(
     [
+        "clear",
         "clone",
         "drop_nulls",
         "estimated_size",

narwhals/dataframe.py

@@ -2283,6 +2283,12 @@ def explode(self, columns: str | Sequence[str], *more_columns: str) -> Self:
         """
         return super().explode(columns, *more_columns)
 
+    def clear(self, n: int = 0) -> Self:
+        if n < 0:
+            msg = f"`n` should be greater than or equal to 0, got {n}"
+            raise ValueError(msg)
+        return self._with_compliant(self._compliant_frame.clear(n=n))
+
 
 class LazyFrame(BaseFrame[FrameT]):
     """Narwhals LazyFrame, backed by a native lazyframe.

tests/frame/clear_test.py

@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+from __future__ import annotations
+
+import pytest
+
+import narwhals as nw
+from tests.utils import ConstructorEager, assert_equal_data
+
+
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("n", [0, 1, 10])
+def test_clear(constructor_eager: ConstructorEager, n: int) -> None:
+    data = {
+        "int": [1, 2, 3],
+        "str": ["foo", "bar", "baz"],
+        "float": [0.1, 0.2, 0.3],
+        "bool": [True, False, True],
+    }
+    df = nw.from_native(constructor_eager(data), eager_only=True)
+    df_clear = df.clear(n=n)
+
+    assert len(df_clear) == n
+    assert df.schema == df_clear.schema
+
+    assert_equal_data(df_clear, {k: [None] * n for k in data})
+
+
+def test_clear_negative(constructor_eager: ConstructorEager) -> None:
+    n = -1
+    data = {"a": [1, 2, 3]}
+    df = nw.from_native(constructor_eager(data), eager_only=True)
+
+    msg = f"`n` should be greater than or equal to 0, got {n}"
+    with pytest.raises(ValueError, match=msg):
+        df.clear(n=n)