1. Fix bug where list like object not returning empty Index.

2. Edit v0.25.0.rst to update changelog.

Author: Sumanau Sareen

doc/source/whatsnew/v0.25.0.rst

@@ -252,6 +252,7 @@ Other API Changes
 - The ``arg`` argument in :meth:`pandas.core.groupby.DataFrameGroupBy.agg` has been renamed to ``func`` (:issue:`26089`)
 - The ``arg`` argument in :meth:`pandas.core.window._Window.aggregate` has been renamed to ``func`` (:issue:`26372`)
 - Most Pandas classes had a ``__bytes__`` method, which was used for getting a python2-style bytestring representation of the object. This method has been removed as a part of dropping Python2 (:issue:`26447`)
+- Bug in :func:`_ensure_valid_index` empty list like object should have an empty Index (:issue:`17101`)
 
 .. _whatsnew_0250.deprecations:
 

pandas/core/frame.py

@@ -3392,7 +3392,7 @@ def _ensure_valid_index(self, value):
         passed value.
         """
         # GH5632, make sure that we are a Series convertible
-        if not len(self.index) and is_list_like(value):
+        if not len(self.index) and len(value) and is_list_like(value):
             try:
                 value = Series(value)
             except (ValueError, NotImplementedError, TypeError):