Code Sample, a copy-pastable example if possible

import pandas as pd
empty_frame=pd.read_excel('pandas/tests/io/data/test1.xlsx', parse_cols=['A','B','C'])
print(empty_frame)
useful_frame=pd.read_csv('pandas/tests/io/data/test1.csv', usecols=['A','B','C'])
print(useful_frame)

Problem description

based on making the argument naming consistent for various read_* functions (#4988), the functionality should also be consistent as well. ideally, keeping the read_excel ability to parse a string as well. a continuation of #16488.

Expected Output

expected output to using parse_col=/usecols=['A','B','C'] is a dataFrame containing the data in excel columns A, B, & C.

Output of pd.show_versions()

INSTALLED VERSIONS ------------------ commit: None python: 3.4.5.final.0 python-bits: 64 OS: Darwin OS-release: 16.6.0 machine: x86_64 processor: i386 byteorder: little LC_ALL: None LANG: en_US.UTF-8 LOCALE: en_US.UTF-8 pandas: 0.19.2 nose: None pip: 9.0.1 setuptools: 27.2.0 Cython: 0.25.2 numpy: 1.11.3 scipy: 0.18.1 statsmodels: None xarray: None IPython: 5.1.0 sphinx: 1.5.1 patsy: 0.4.1 dateutil: 2.6.0 pytz: 2017.2 blosc: None bottleneck: 1.2.0 tables: 3.3.0 numexpr: 2.6.1 matplotlib: 2.0.0 openpyxl: 2.4.1 xlrd: 1.0.0 xlwt: 1.2.0 xlsxwriter: 0.9.6 lxml: 3.7.2 bs4: 4.3.2 html5lib: 0.999 httplib2: None apiclient: None sqlalchemy: 1.1.5 pymysql: 0.7.9.None psycopg2: None jinja2: 2.9.6 boto: None pandas_datareader: None

Comment From: jreback

how is this different than #4988 ?

Comment From: abarber4gh

in #4988, @jreback requested "needs to be in a separate PR from the deprecation change." my original PR for #4988 was to change the keyword (from parse_cols to usecols) to match other read_* functions and implement this functionality. this issue was created to separate the kwarg change from the functionality change.

Comment From: jreback

@abarber4gh but that is what the original issue is about. So unless you have something different, this is a duplicate issue.

Comment From: gfyoung

@jreback : I agree. Closing as such unless otherwise noted.