Resolves Issue 21344: provide a timedelta in a non-string format

doc/source/whatsnew/v0.23.1.txt

@@ -133,3 +133,4 @@ Bug Fixes
 
 - Tab completion on :class:`Index` in IPython no longer outputs deprecation warnings (:issue:`21125`)
 - Bug preventing pandas being used on Windows without C++ redistributable installed (:issue:`21106`)
+- Add `resolution_timedelta` to :class:`Timedelta` to get non-string representations of resolution (:issue: `21344`)

pandas/_libs/tslibs/timedeltas.pyx

@@ -795,7 +795,11 @@ cdef class _Timedelta(timedelta):
 
     @property
     def resolution(self):
-        """ return a string representing the lowest resolution that we have """
+        """
+        Return a string representing the lowest resolution that we have.
+        Note that this is nonstandard behavior.
+        To retrieve a timedelta object use the resolution_timedelta property
+        """
 
         self._ensure_components()
         if self._ns:
@@ -813,6 +817,32 @@ cdef class _Timedelta(timedelta):
         else:
             return "D"
 
+    @property
+    def resolution_timedelta(self):
+        """
+        Return a timedelta object (rather than a string)
+        representing the lowest resolution we have.
+        to retrieve a string use the resolution property.
+        """
+
+        self._ensure_components()
+        if self._ns:
+            # At time of writing datetime.timedelta doesn't
+            # support nanoseconds as a keyword argument.
+            return timedelta(microseconds=0.1)
+        elif self._us:
+            return timedelta(microseconds=1)
+        elif self._ms:
+            return timedelta(milliseconds=1)
+        elif self._s:
+            return timedelta(seconds=1)
+        elif self._m:
+            return timedelta(minutes=1)
+        elif self._h:
+            return timedelta(hours=1)
+        else:
+            return timedelta(days=1)
+
     @property
     def nanoseconds(self):
         """

pandas/tests/scalar/timedelta/test_timedelta.py

@@ -588,3 +588,31 @@ def test_components(self):
         result = s.dt.components
         assert not result.iloc[0].isna().all()
         assert result.iloc[1].isna().all()
+
+    def test_resolution(self):
+        # GH 21344
+        assert Timedelta(nanoseconds=30).resolution == 'N'
+        # Note that datetime.timedelta doesn't offer
+        # finer resolution than microseconds
+        assert Timedelta(nanoseconds=30).resolution_timedelta.resolution == \
+            timedelta(0, 0, 1)
+
+        assert Timedelta(microseconds=30).resolution == 'U'
+        assert Timedelta(microseconds=30).resolution_timedelta.resolution == \
+            timedelta(0, 0, 1)
+
+        assert Timedelta(milliseconds=30).resolution == 'L'
+        assert Timedelta(milliseconds=30).resolution_timedelta.resolution == \
+            timedelta(0, 0, 1)
+
+        assert Timedelta(seconds=30).resolution == 'S'
+        assert Timedelta(seconds=30).resolution_timedelta.resolution == \
+            timedelta(0, 0, 1)
+
+        assert Timedelta(minutes=30).resolution == 'T'
+        assert Timedelta(minutes=30).resolution_timedelta.resolution == \
+            timedelta(0, 0, 1)
+
+        assert Timedelta(hours=2).resolution == 'H'
+        assert Timedelta(hours=2).resolution_timedelta.resolution == \
+            timedelta(0, 0, 1)