title: Slicing by specific month and day in Pandas
body: <p>So I am working on a function that would allow users to be able to select a seasonal period, and it works, but I would like to allow some extra functionality.</p>
  
  <p>Right now I allow the user to specify a monthly period, and the function returns a new dataframe that has the data that is in the months specified (see code and example). What I would like is to allow the user to select a starting month and day (eg. Jan 5 - March 18) and only select the date that falls in that range. Would that be possible?</p>
  
  <p>The code I have is below:</p>
  
  <pre><code>import numpy as np
  import pandas as pd
  
  def seasonal_period(merged_dataframe, period):
      """Returns the seasonal period specified for the time series"""
      start = period[0]
      end = period[1]
      merged_dataframe = merged_dataframe.loc[(merged_dataframe.index.month &gt;= start) &amp;
                                                  (merged_dataframe.index.month &lt;= end)]
      return merged_dataframe
  
  
  # Testing the seasonal period with random data
  df = pd.DataFrame(np.random.rand(10000, 3), index=pd.date_range('1/1/1980', periods=10000, freq='D'))
  
  # Returns data between Jan and May
  print(seasonal_period(merged_dataframe=df, period=[1, 5])) 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This prints:</p>
  
  <pre><code>                   0         1         2
  1980-01-01  0.788608  0.113614  0.328662
  1980-01-02  0.208422  0.974086  0.765795
  1980-01-03  0.448420  0.004947  0.184313
  1980-01-04  0.400208  0.194078  0.961875
  1980-01-05  0.118263  0.406548  0.358848
  1980-01-06  0.824994  0.969560  0.892299
  1980-01-07  0.140431  0.642784  0.961061
  1980-01-08  0.235443  0.236711  0.291453
  1980-01-09  0.420899  0.083092  0.277860
  1980-01-10  0.185541  0.640260  0.161851
  1980-01-11  0.654466  0.742445  0.398733
  1980-01-12  0.270931  0.500233  0.121283
  1980-01-13  0.590752  0.057112  0.477629
  1980-01-14  0.122973  0.997112  0.998513
  1980-01-15  0.330342  0.175655  0.240798
  1980-01-16  0.559489  0.426027  0.135564
  1980-01-17  0.260714  0.493863  0.420336
  1980-01-18  0.214587  0.890858  0.097045
  1980-01-19  0.243018  0.285315  0.112326
  1980-01-20  0.334157  0.630524  0.585468
  1980-01-21  0.974340  0.023412  0.349269
  1980-01-22  0.435924  0.709390  0.554518
  1980-01-23  0.158202  0.288950  0.747733
  1980-01-24  0.855350  0.066325  0.796400
  1980-01-25  0.482685  0.962369  0.948844
  1980-01-26  0.605162  0.185115  0.832465
  1980-01-27  0.078977  0.886044  0.823400
  1980-01-28  0.062488  0.841581  0.998819
  1980-01-29  0.070578  0.836261  0.732075
  1980-01-30  0.386692  0.413445  0.524926
  ...              ...       ...       ...
  2007-04-19  0.030180  0.295753  0.696634
  2007-04-20  0.246591  0.245117  0.096647
  2007-04-21  0.915289  0.264874  0.754863
  2007-04-22  0.222286  0.041275  0.922791
  2007-04-23  0.389606  0.149993  0.200387
  2007-04-24  0.113636  0.923970  0.031243
  2007-04-25  0.154459  0.587656  0.508116
  2007-04-26  0.525778  0.056525  0.380457
  2007-04-27  0.335463  0.343321  0.191828
  2007-04-28  0.249183  0.361834  0.327324
  2007-04-29  0.994158  0.108749  0.375496
  2007-04-30  0.674535  0.527557  0.744897
  2007-05-01  0.029355  0.227039  0.418219
  2007-05-02  0.946061  0.251699  0.002965
  2007-05-03  0.127731  0.479151  0.634638
  2007-05-04  0.045522  0.800802  0.170384
  2007-05-05  0.514632  0.426107  0.557497
  2007-05-06  0.974910  0.757357  0.119415
  2007-05-07  0.624626  0.287442  0.211390
  2007-05-08  0.408227  0.720328  0.400762
  2007-05-09  0.981552  0.399663  0.953638
  2007-05-10  0.256625  0.301236  0.832127
  2007-05-11  0.513227  0.649790  0.174498
  2007-05-12  0.229353  0.089870  0.024055
  2007-05-13  0.819985  0.470549  0.388860
  2007-05-14  0.640930  0.530929  0.694122
  2007-05-15  0.065560  0.084560  0.677467
  2007-05-16  0.297165  0.949761  0.483062
  2007-05-17  0.405513  0.320957  0.678885
  2007-05-18  0.315292  0.773871  0.043010
  
  [4222 rows x 3 columns]
  
  Process finished with exit code 0
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Any suggestions?</p>