DeclanBuchanan add_column automatic fill remaining

[DeclanBuchanan]

PR Description

Please describe the changes proposed in the pull request:

• the function add_column willl now automatically fill remaining, without the user needing to use the fill-remaining parameter

This PR resolves #(put issue number here, and remove parentheses).

PR Checklist

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Relevant Reviewers

Please tag maintainers to review.

• @ericmjl

[ericmjl]

Code Review Feedback

Thanks for the PR! I understand the goal is to make fill_remaining automatic.

The essence of "automatic fill remaining" is a behavior change: currently, when fill_remaining=False (the default) and the value length doesn't match the dataframe length, it raises an error. Making it "automatic" means this error would no longer occur - values would be filled/repeated instead.

This is a breaking change that would require a minor version bump (e.g., 0.x → 0.y) -- that's the versioning convention we stick to pre-1.0.

Suggested Approach

If we're going to make this behavior change, the simplest and cleanest implementation is to:

1. Change the default parameter from False to True:

   fill_remaining: bool = True,  # Changed from False

2. Revert all the other logic changes - the existing code already handles fill_remaining=True correctly.

3. Remove the unnecessary additions:

   • The warning on lines 99-100
   • The broken else branch (lines 125-126)
   • The logic modifications that break scalar handling

This approach:

• Achieves the goal with minimal code changes
• Keeps all existing logic intact (no risk of new bugs)
• Maintains backward compatibility (users can still pass fill_remaining=False)
• Requires a version bump (which is necessary for any behavior change anyway)

The current implementation tries to achieve the same goal but introduces bugs and unnecessary complexity. If we're making a breaking change, let's do it the simple way.

[samukweku]

@ericmjl should we be updating this function? It is slated for depreciation, and we advise users to use another function instrad

[ericmjl]

@samukweku I think we have enough syntactic sugar here that this can be kept around, actually. Now that I'm thinking of it, I'm can't exactly remember why we decided to deprecate it to begin with. Do you remember, @samukweku?

[samukweku]

@ericmjl I believe it is covered mostly by the assign method

[samukweku]

Of course nothing is set in stone