@@ -6,7 +6,8 @@ MatchCategories
 ===============
 
 :class:`MatchCategories()` ensures that categorical variables are encoded as pandas
-'categorical' dtype instead of generic python 'object' or other dtypes.
+'categorical' dtype, or polars 'Enum' dtype, instead of generic python 'object',
+string or other dtypes.
 
 Under the hood, 'categorical' dtype is a representation that maps each
 category to an integer, thus providing a more memory-efficient object
@@ -79,10 +80,10 @@ Here are the mappings learnt for each categorical variable:
 
 .. code:: python
 
-    {'pclass': Int64Index([1, 2, 3], dtype='int64'),
-     'sex': Index(['female', 'male'], dtype='object'),
-     'cabin': Index(['A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F', 'M', 'T'], dtype='object'),
-     'embarked': Index(['C', 'Missing', 'Q', 'S'], dtype='object')}
+    {'pclass': Index([1, 2, 3], dtype='int64'),
+     'sex': Index(['female', 'male'], dtype='str'),
+     'cabin': Index(['A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F', 'M', 'T'], dtype='str'),
+     'embarked': Index(['C', 'Missing', 'Q', 'S'], dtype='str')}
 
 To see why this matters, let's compare the order in which the categories of `embarked`
 appear in the raw train and test sets. This is the order in the train set:
@@ -95,7 +96,9 @@ We obtain the following order:
 
 .. code:: python
 
-    array(['S', 'C', 'Missing', 'Q'], dtype=object)
+    <StringArray>
+    ['S', 'C', 'Missing', 'Q']
+    Length: 4, dtype: str
 
 And this is the order in the test set:
 
@@ -107,7 +110,9 @@ Which is different from the train set:
 
 .. code:: python
 
-    array(['Q', 'S', 'C'], dtype=object)
+    <StringArray>
+    ['Q', 'S', 'C']
+    Length: 3, dtype: str
 
 The categories appear in a different order in each set. If we transform the dataframes
 using the same `match_categories` object, categorical variables will be converted to a
@@ -122,7 +127,7 @@ Which is:
 
 .. code:: python
 
-    Index(['C', 'Missing', 'Q', 'S'], dtype='object')
+    Index(['C', 'Missing', 'Q', 'S'], dtype='str')
 
 And this is the order we now obtain for the test set:
 
@@ -134,11 +139,10 @@ The 2 sets now show exactly the same category order:
 
 .. code:: python
 
-    Index(['C', 'Missing', 'Q', 'S'], dtype='object')
+    Index(['C', 'Missing', 'Q', 'S'], dtype='str')
 
 If some category was not present in the training data, it will not be mapped
-to any integer and will thus not get encoded. This behaviour can be modified through the
-parameter `errors`. Let's illustrate this with the `cabin` variable. These are the
+to any integer and will become a missing value instead. Let's illustrate this with the `cabin` variable. These are the
 categories present in the train set:
 
 .. code:: python
@@ -149,7 +153,9 @@ We obtain the following categories:
 
 .. code:: python
 
-    array(['B', 'C', 'E', 'D', 'A', 'M', 'T', 'F'], dtype=object)
+    <StringArray>
+    ['B', 'C', 'E', 'D', 'A', 'M', 'T', 'F']
+    Length: 8, dtype: str
 
 And these are the categories present in the test set, which include a category, 'G',
 that was not seen during training:
@@ -162,7 +168,9 @@ We obtain the following categories, including the unseen 'G':
 
 .. code:: python
 
-    array(['M', 'F', 'E', 'G'], dtype=object)
+    <StringArray>
+    ['M', 'F', 'E', 'G']
+    Length: 4, dtype: str
 
 After transforming the train set, we obtain the same categories as before, now correctly
 typed as 'category' dtype:
@@ -176,7 +184,7 @@ Which are:
 .. code:: python
 
     ['B', 'C', 'E', 'D', 'A', 'M', 'T', 'F']
-    Categories (8, object): ['A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F', 'M', 'T']
+    Categories (8, str): ['A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F', 'M', 'T']
 
 But when we transform the test set, the unseen category 'G' is not mapped to any integer,
 and becomes a missing value instead:
@@ -190,7 +198,130 @@ We see that 'G' has been replaced by a missing value:
 .. code:: python
 
     ['M', 'F', 'E', NaN]
-    Categories (8, object): ['A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F', 'M', 'T']
+    Categories (8, str): ['A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F', 'M', 'T']
+
+Because we set `missing_values="ignore"`, :class:`MatchCategories()` warns us that
+missing values were introduced:
+
+.. code:: python
+
+    UserWarning: During the encoding, NaN values were introduced in the feature(s) cabin.
+
+With the default `missing_values="raise"`, :class:`MatchCategories()` raises an error
+instead, both when the data contains missing values and when unseen categories would
+introduce them.
+
+With polars
+^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+:class:`MatchCategories()` also works with polars dataframes. In polars, the variables
+are cast to the 'Enum' dtype, which, like pandas 'categorical', holds a fixed list of
+categories. Let's create a toy train set and test set:
+
+.. code:: python
+
+    import polars as pl
+    from feature_engine.preprocessing import MatchCategories
+
+    train = pl.DataFrame({
+        "city": ["London", "Paris", "Madrid", "Paris"],
+        "rooms": [2, 3, 1, 3],
+    })
+    test = pl.DataFrame({
+        "city": ["Madrid", "Rome", "London", "Paris"],
+        "rooms": [1, 2, 4, 3],
+    })
+
+We fit :class:`MatchCategories()` to the train set:
+
+.. code:: python
+
+    match_categories = MatchCategories(missing_values="ignore")
+    match_categories.fit(train)
+
+    match_categories.category_dict_
+
+With polars, the categories are stored in lists:
+
+.. code:: python
+
+    {'city': ['London', 'Madrid', 'Paris']}
+
+Now we transform the test set:
+
+.. code:: python
+
+    test_t = match_categories.transform(test)
+    test_t
+
+The variable `city` is now an 'Enum', and the unseen category 'Rome' became a missing
+value:
+
+.. code:: text
+
+    shape: (4, 2)
+    ┌────────┬───────┐
+    │ city   ┆ rooms │
+    │ ---    ┆ ---   │
+    │ enum   ┆ i64   │
+    ╞════════╪═══════╡
+    │ Madrid ┆ 1     │
+    │ null   ┆ 2     │
+    │ London ┆ 4     │
+    │ Paris  ┆ 3     │
+    └────────┴───────┘
+
+We can check the categories in the schema:
+
+.. code:: python
+
+    test_t.schema
+
+The categories are the ones learned from the train set:
+
+.. code:: python
+
+    Schema({'city': Enum(categories=['London', 'Madrid', 'Paris']), 'rooms': Int64})
+
+The polars 'Enum' dtype only takes strings. Hence, if we cast numerical variables by
+setting `ignore_format=True`, their values become strings. The categories are sorted
+in numerical order:
+
+.. code:: python
+
+    match_categories = MatchCategories(
+        variables=["rooms"], ignore_format=True, missing_values="ignore"
+    )
+    match_categories.fit(train)
+
+    match_categories.category_dict_
+
+We see the categories of `rooms` as strings:
+
+.. code:: python
+
+    {'rooms': ['1', '2', '3']}
+
+And these are the values after the transformation, where the unseen value 4 became a
+missing value:
+
+.. code:: python
+
+    match_categories.transform(test)
+
+.. code:: text
+
+    shape: (4, 2)
+    ┌────────┬───────┐
+    │ city   ┆ rooms │
+    │ ---    ┆ ---   │
+    │ str    ┆ enum  │
+    ╞════════╪═══════╡
+    │ Madrid ┆ 1     │
+    │ Rome   ┆ 2     │
+    │ London ┆ null  │
+    │ Paris  ┆ 3     │
+    └────────┴───────┘
 
 
 When to use the transformer