API: default value for read_excel sheet

doc/source/io.rst

@@ -1820,7 +1820,7 @@ a DataFrame. See the :ref:`cookbook<cookbook.excel>` for some
 advanced strategies
 
 Besides ``read_excel`` you can also read Excel files using the ``ExcelFile``
-class. The following two command are equivalent:
+class. The following two commands are equivalent:
 
 .. code-block:: python
 
@@ -1843,10 +1843,13 @@ the sheet names using the ``sheet_names`` attribute.
 .. versionadded:: 0.13
 
 There are now two ways to read in sheets from an Excel file. You can provide
-either the index of a sheet or its name. If the value provided is an integer
-then it is assumed that the integer refers to the index of a sheet, otherwise
-if a string is passed then it is assumed that the string refers to the name of
-a particular sheet in the file.
+either the index of a sheet or its name to by passing different values for 
+``sheet_name``. 
+
+- Pass a string to refer to the name of a particular sheet in the workbook.
+- Pass an integer to refer to the index of a sheet. Indices follow Python 
+  convention, beginning at 0.
+- The default value is ``sheet_name=0``. This reads the first sheet.
 
 Using the sheet name:
 
@@ -1860,6 +1863,12 @@ Using the sheet index:
 
    read_excel('path_to_file.xls', 0, index_col=None, na_values=['NA'])
 
+Using all default values:
+
+.. code-block:: python
+
+   read_excel('path_to_file.xls')
+
 It is often the case that users will insert columns to do temporary computations
 in Excel and you may not want to read in those columns. `read_excel` takes
 a `parse_cols` keyword to allow you to specify a subset of columns to parse.

doc/source/release.rst

@@ -63,6 +63,7 @@ New features
 API Changes
 ~~~~~~~~~~~
 
+- ``read_excel`` uses 0 as the default sheet (:issue:`6573`)
 - ``iloc`` will now accept out-of-bounds indexers, e.g. a value that exceeds the length of the object being
   indexed. These will be excluded. This will make pandas conform more with pandas/numpy indexing of out-of-bounds
   values. A single indexer that is out-of-bounds and drops the dimensions of the object will still raise

doc/source/v0.14.0.txt

@@ -15,6 +15,7 @@ Highlights include:
 API changes
 ~~~~~~~~~~~
 
+``read_excel`` uses 0 as the default sheet (:issue:`6573`)
 - ``iloc`` will now accept out-of-bounds indexers for slices, e.g. a value that exceeds the length of the object being
   indexed. These will be excluded. This will make pandas conform more with pandas/numpy indexing of out-of-bounds
   values. A single indexer / list of indexers that is out-of-bounds will still raise

pandas/io/excel.py

@@ -49,17 +49,17 @@ def get_writer(engine_name):
         raise ValueError("No Excel writer '%s'" % engine_name)
 
 
-def read_excel(io, sheetname, **kwds):
+def read_excel(io, sheetname=0, **kwds):
     """Read an Excel table into a pandas DataFrame
 
     Parameters
     ----------
     io : string, file-like object or xlrd workbook
         If a string, expected to be a path to xls or xlsx file
-    sheetname : string
-         Name of Excel sheet
+    sheetname : string or int, default 0
+        Name of Excel sheet or the page number of the sheet
     header : int, default 0
-         Row to use for the column labels of the parsed DataFrame
+        Row to use for the column labels of the parsed DataFrame
     skiprows : list-like
         Rows to skip at the beginning (0-indexed)
     skip_footer : int, default 0
@@ -147,7 +147,7 @@ def __init__(self, io, **kwds):
             raise ValueError('Must explicitly set engine if not passing in'
                              ' buffer or path for io.')
 
-    def parse(self, sheetname, header=0, skiprows=None, skip_footer=0,
+    def parse(self, sheetname=0, header=0, skiprows=None, skip_footer=0,
               index_col=None, parse_cols=None, parse_dates=False,
               date_parser=None, na_values=None, thousands=None, chunksize=None,
               convert_float=True, has_index_names=False, **kwds):
@@ -200,7 +200,8 @@ def parse(self, sheetname, header=0, skiprows=None, skip_footer=0,
         if skipfooter is not None:
             skip_footer = skipfooter
 
-        return self._parse_excel(sheetname, header=header, skiprows=skiprows,
+        return self._parse_excel(sheetname=sheetname, header=header,
+                                 skiprows=skiprows,
                                  index_col=index_col,
                                  has_index_names=has_index_names,
                                  parse_cols=parse_cols,
@@ -244,7 +245,7 @@ def _excel2num(x):
         else:
             return i in parse_cols
 
-    def _parse_excel(self, sheetname, header=0, skiprows=None, skip_footer=0,
+    def _parse_excel(self, sheetname=0, header=0, skiprows=None, skip_footer=0,
                      index_col=None, has_index_names=None, parse_cols=None,
                      parse_dates=False, date_parser=None, na_values=None,
                      thousands=None, chunksize=None, convert_float=True,

pandas/io/tests/test_excel.py

@@ -445,6 +445,15 @@ def test_roundtrip(self):
                                 na_values=[88, 88.0])
             tm.assert_frame_equal(self.frame, recons)
 
+            # GH 6573
+            self.frame.to_excel(path, 'Sheet1')
+            recons = read_excel(path, index_col=0)
+            tm.assert_frame_equal(self.frame, recons)
+
+            self.frame.to_excel(path, '0')
+            recons = read_excel(path, index_col=0)
+            tm.assert_frame_equal(self.frame, recons)
+
     def test_mixed(self):
         _skip_if_no_xlrd()