handles preprocessing for cut where we convert passed
    input to array, strip the index information and store it
    separately

def _preprocess_for_cut(x):
    """
    handles preprocessing for cut where we convert passed
    input to array, strip the index information and store it
    separately
    """
    x_is_series = isinstance(x, Series)
    series_index = None
    name = None

    if x_is_series:
        series_index = x.index
        name = x.name

    # Check that the passed array is a Pandas or Numpy object
    # We don't want to strip away a Pandas data-type here (e.g. datetimetz)
    ndim = getattr(x, 'ndim', None)
    if ndim is None:
        x = np.asarray(x)
    if x.ndim != 1:
        raise ValueError("Input array must be 1 dimensional")

    return x_is_series, series_index, name, x