fix: do not clamp negative offsets to start of array prematurely

crates/polars-core/src/chunked_array/mod.rs

@@ -853,7 +853,7 @@ pub(crate) mod test {
         assert_slice_equal(&first.slice(-3, 3), &[3, 4, 5]);
         assert_slice_equal(&first.slice(-6, 6), &[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]);
 
-        assert_eq!(first.slice(-7, 2).len(), 2);
+        assert_eq!(first.slice(-7, 2).len(), 1);
         assert_eq!(first.slice(-3, 4).len(), 3);
         assert_eq!(first.slice(3, 4).len(), 3);
         assert_eq!(first.slice(10, 4).len(), 0);

crates/polars-core/src/utils/mod.rs

@@ -190,24 +190,22 @@ pub fn slice_slice<T>(vals: &[T], offset: i64, len: usize) -> &[T] {
 #[inline]
 #[doc(hidden)]
 pub fn slice_offsets(offset: i64, length: usize, array_len: usize) -> (usize, usize) {
-    let abs_offset = offset.unsigned_abs() as usize;
-
-    // The offset counted from the start of the array
-    // negative index
-    if offset < 0 {
-        if abs_offset <= array_len {
-            (array_len - abs_offset, std::cmp::min(length, abs_offset))
-            // negative index larger that array: slice from start
-        } else {
-            (0, std::cmp::min(length, array_len))
-        }
-        // positive index
-    } else if abs_offset <= array_len {
-        (abs_offset, std::cmp::min(length, array_len - abs_offset))
-        // empty slice
+    let signed_start_offset = if offset < 0 {
+        offset.saturating_add_unsigned(array_len as u64)
     } else {
-        (array_len, 0)
-    }
+        offset
+    };
+    let signed_stop_offset = signed_start_offset.saturating_add_unsigned(length as u64);
+
+    let signed_array_len: i64 = array_len
+        .try_into()
+        .expect("array length larger than i64::MAX");
+    let clamped_start_offset = signed_start_offset.clamp(0, signed_array_len);
+    let clamped_stop_offset = signed_stop_offset.clamp(0, signed_array_len);
+
+    let slice_start_idx = clamped_start_offset as usize;
+    let slice_len = (clamped_stop_offset - clamped_start_offset) as usize;
+    (slice_start_idx, slice_len)
 }
 
 /// Apply a macro on the Series

py-polars/tests/unit/namespaces/list/test_list.py

@@ -258,6 +258,7 @@ def test_slice() -> None:
     assert s.list.tail(200).to_list() == vals
     assert s.list.head(200).to_list() == vals
     assert s.list.slice(1, 2).to_list() == [[2, 3], [2, 1]]
+    assert s.list.slice(-5, 2).to_list() == [[1], []]
 
 
 def test_list_eval_dtype_inference() -> None:

py-polars/tests/unit/operations/test_slice.py

@@ -30,6 +30,10 @@ def test_python_slicing_data_frame() -> None:
     ):
         assert_frame_equal(df.slice(*slice_params), expected)
 
+    # Negative starting index before start of dataframe.
+    expected = pl.DataFrame({"a": [1, 2], "b": ["a", "b"]})
+    assert_frame_equal(df.slice(-5, 4), expected)
+
     for py_slice in (
         slice(1, 2),
         slice(0, 2, 2),
@@ -50,6 +54,8 @@ def test_python_slicing_series() -> None:
         [s.slice(4, None), [4, 5]],
         [s.slice(3), [3, 4, 5]],
         [s.slice(-2), [4, 5]],
+        [s.slice(-7, 4), [0, 1, 2]],
+        [s.slice(-700, 4), []],
     ):
         assert srs_slice.to_list() == expected  # type: ignore[attr-defined]