dtypes muck things up when shifting on axis one (columns)

It turns out that Pandas is shifting over blocks of similar dtypes

Define df as

df = pd.DataFrame(dict(
    A=[1, 2], B=[3., 4.], C=['X', 'Y'],
    D=[5., 6.], E=[7, 8], F=['W', 'Z']
))

df

#  i    f  o    f  i  o
#  n    l  b    l  n  b
#  t    t  j    t  t  j
#
   A    B  C    D  E  F
0  1  3.0  X  5.0  7  W
1  2  4.0  Y  6.0  8  Z

It will shift the integers to the next integer column, the floats to the next float column and the objects to the next object column

df.shift(axis=1)

    A   B    C    D    E  F
0 NaN NaN  NaN  3.0  1.0  X
1 NaN NaN  NaN  4.0  2.0  Y

I don't know if that's a good idea, but that is what is happening.

---

Approaches

astype(object) first

dtypes = df.dtypes.shift(fill_value=object)
df_shifted = df.astype(object).shift(1, axis=1).astype(dtypes)

df_shifted

     A  B    C  D    E  F
0  NaN  1  3.0  X  5.0  7
1  NaN  2  4.0  Y  6.0  8

---

transpose

Will make it object

dtypes = df.dtypes.shift(fill_value=object)
df_shifted = df.T.shift().T.astype(dtypes)

df_shifted

     A  B    C  D    E  F
0  NaN  1  3.0  X  5.0  7
1  NaN  2  4.0  Y  6.0  8

---

itertuples

pd.DataFrame([(np.nan, *t[1:-1]) for t in df.itertuples()], columns=[*df])

     A  B    C  D    E  F
0  NaN  1  3.0  X  5.0  7
1  NaN  2  4.0  Y  6.0  8

Though I'd probably do this

pd.DataFrame([
    (np.nan, *t[:-1]) for t in
    df.itertuples(index=False, name=None)
], columns=[*df])