BUG: inconsistent validation for get_indexer

doc/source/whatsnew/v1.3.0.rst

@@ -992,6 +992,7 @@ Indexing
 - Bug in :meth:`DataFrame.__setitem__` raising a ``TypeError`` when using a ``str`` subclass as the column name with a :class:`DatetimeIndex` (:issue:`37366`)
 - Bug in :meth:`PeriodIndex.get_loc` failing to raise a ``KeyError`` when given a :class:`Period` with a mismatched ``freq`` (:issue:`41670`)
 - Bug ``.loc.__getitem__`` with a :class:`UInt64Index` and negative-integer keys raising ``OverflowError`` instead of ``KeyError`` in some cases, wrapping around to positive integers in others (:issue:`41777`)
+- Bug in :meth:`Index.get_indexer` failing to raise ``ValueError`` in some cases with invalid ``method``, ``limit``, or ``tolerance`` arguments (:issue:`41918`)
 
 Missing
 ^^^^^^^

pandas/core/indexes/base.py

@@ -3393,7 +3393,7 @@ def get_indexer(
         method = missing.clean_reindex_fill_method(method)
         target = self._maybe_cast_listlike_indexer(target)
 
-        self._check_indexing_method(method)
+        self._check_indexing_method(method, limit, tolerance)
 
         if not self._index_as_unique:
             raise InvalidIndexError(self._requires_unique_msg)
@@ -3435,39 +3435,55 @@ def _get_indexer(
         elif method == "nearest":
             indexer = self._get_nearest_indexer(target, limit, tolerance)
         else:
-            if tolerance is not None:
-                raise ValueError(
-                    "tolerance argument only valid if doing pad, "
-                    "backfill or nearest reindexing"
-                )
-            if limit is not None:
-                raise ValueError(
-                    "limit argument only valid if doing pad, "
-                    "backfill or nearest reindexing"
-                )
-
             indexer = self._engine.get_indexer(target._get_engine_target())
 
         return ensure_platform_int(indexer)
 
     @final
-    def _check_indexing_method(self, method: str_t | None) -> None:
+    def _check_indexing_method(
+        self,
+        method: str_t | None,
+        limit: int | None = None,
+        tolerance=None,
+    ) -> None:
         """
         Raise if we have a get_indexer `method` that is not supported or valid.
         """
-        # GH#37871 for now this is only for IntervalIndex and CategoricalIndex
-        if not (is_interval_dtype(self.dtype) or is_categorical_dtype(self.dtype)):
-            return
+        if method not in [None, "bfill", "backfill", "pad", "ffill", "nearest"]:
+            # in practice the clean_reindex_fill_method call would raise
+            #  before we get here
+            raise ValueError("Invalid fill method")  # pragma: no cover
 
-        if method is None:
-            return
+        if self._is_multi:
+            if method == "nearest":
+                raise NotImplementedError(
+                    "method='nearest' not implemented yet "
+                    "for MultiIndex; see GitHub issue 9365"
+                )
+            elif method == "pad" or method == "backfill":
+                if tolerance is not None:
+                    raise NotImplementedError(
+                        "tolerance not implemented yet for MultiIndex"
+                    )
 
-        if method in ["bfill", "backfill", "pad", "ffill", "nearest"]:
-            raise NotImplementedError(
-                f"method {method} not yet implemented for {type(self).__name__}"
-            )
+        if is_interval_dtype(self.dtype) or is_categorical_dtype(self.dtype):
+            # GH#37871 for now this is only for IntervalIndex and CategoricalIndex
+            if method is not None:
+                raise NotImplementedError(
+                    f"method {method} not yet implemented for {type(self).__name__}"
+                )
 
-        raise ValueError("Invalid fill method")
+        if method is None:
+            if tolerance is not None:
+                raise ValueError(
+                    "tolerance argument only valid if doing pad, "
+                    "backfill or nearest reindexing"
+                )
+            if limit is not None:
+                raise ValueError(
+                    "limit argument only valid if doing pad, "
+                    "backfill or nearest reindexing"
+                )
 
     def _convert_tolerance(self, tolerance, target: np.ndarray | Index) -> np.ndarray:
         # override this method on subclasses

pandas/core/indexes/multi.py

@@ -2673,20 +2673,11 @@ def _get_indexer(
                 #  gets here, and it is checking that we raise with method="nearest"
 
         if method == "pad" or method == "backfill":
-            if tolerance is not None:
-                raise NotImplementedError(
-                    "tolerance not implemented yet for MultiIndex"
-                )
             # TODO: get_indexer_with_fill docstring says values must be _sorted_
             #  but that doesn't appear to be enforced
             indexer = self._engine.get_indexer_with_fill(
                 target=target._values, values=self._values, method=method, limit=limit
             )
-        elif method == "nearest":
-            raise NotImplementedError(
-                "method='nearest' not implemented yet "
-                "for MultiIndex; see GitHub issue 9365"
-            )
         else:
             indexer = self._engine.get_indexer(target._values)
 

pandas/tests/indexes/multi/test_indexing.py

@@ -445,6 +445,18 @@ def test_get_indexer_crossing_levels(self):
         expected = np.array([7, 15], dtype=pad_indexer.dtype)
         tm.assert_almost_equal(expected, pad_indexer)
 
+    def test_get_indexer_kwarg_validation(self):
+        # GH#41918
+        mi = MultiIndex.from_product([range(3), ["A", "B"]])
+
+        msg = "limit argument only valid if doing pad, backfill or nearest"
+        with pytest.raises(ValueError, match=msg):
+            mi.get_indexer(mi[:-1], limit=4)
+
+        msg = "tolerance argument only valid if doing pad, backfill or nearest"
+        with pytest.raises(ValueError, match=msg):
+            mi.get_indexer(mi[:-1], tolerance="piano")
+
 
 def test_getitem(idx):
     # scalar