In Pandas interpolate function, is method='time' equivalent to method='linear' when the time index is equally spaced? A basic example suggests this is the case: even_index = pd.date_range( '2019-02-20 10:00 am', '2019-02-20 2:00 pm', freq='1 h') values = [10, np.nan, 30, np.nan, 50] df_even = pd.DataFrame(values, index=even_index) >>> df_even.interpolate(method='time') 0 2019-02-20 10:00:00 10.0 2019-02-20 11:00:00 20.0 2019-02-20 12:00:00 30.0 2019-02-20 13:00:00 40.0 2019-02-20 14:00:00 50.0 >>> df_even.interpolate(method='linear') 0 2019-02-20 10:00:00 10.0 2019-02-20 11:00:00 20.0 2019-02-20 12:00:00 30.0 2019-02-20 13:00:00 40.0 2019-02-20 14:00:00 50.0 A difference between 'time' and 'linear' only seems to occur if the time index is not equally spaced: uneven_index = pd.to_datetime([ '2019-02-20 10:00 am', '2019-02-20 10:30 am', '2019-02-20 12:30 pm', '2019-02-20 1:30 pm', '2019-02-20 2:00 pm']) df_uneven = pd.DataFrame(values, index=uneven_index) >>> df_uneven.interpolate(method='time') 0 2019-02-20 10:00:00 10.000000 2019-02-20 10:30:00 14.000000 2019-02-20 12:30:00 30.000000 2019-02-20 13:30:00 43.333333 2019-02-20 14:00:00 50.000000 >>> df_uneven.interpolate(method='linear') 0 2019-02-20 10:00:00 10.0 2019-02-20 10:30:00 20.0 2019-02-20 12:30:00 30.0 2019-02-20 13:30:00 40.0 2019-02-20 14:00:00 50.0 My question is whether this always holds. Can it be assumed with an equally spaced time index, method='time' will always perform linear interpolation? Continue reading...