Source code for astropy.visualization.hist

# Licensed under a 3-clause BSD style license - see LICENSE.rst


import numpy as np
from inspect import signature
from astropy.stats.histogram import calculate_bin_edges

__all__ = ['hist']


def hist(x, bins=10, ax=None, max_bins=1e5, **kwargs):
    """Enhanced histogram function

    This is a histogram function that enables the use of more sophisticated
    algorithms for determining bins.  Aside from the ``bins`` argument allowing
    a string specified how bins are computed, the parameters are the same
    as pylab.hist().

    This function was ported from astroML: http://astroML.org/

    Parameters
    ----------
    x : array_like
        array of data to be histogrammed

    bins : int or list or str (optional)
        If bins is a string, then it must be one of:

        - 'blocks' : use bayesian blocks for dynamic bin widths

        - 'knuth' : use Knuth's rule to determine bins

        - 'scott' : use Scott's rule to determine bins

        - 'freedman' : use the Freedman-diaconis rule to determine bins

    ax : Axes instance (optional)
        specify the Axes on which to draw the histogram.  If not specified,
        then the current active axes will be used.

    max_bins : int (optional)
        Maximum number of bins allowed. With more than a few thousand bins
        the performance of matplotlib will not be great. If the number of
        bins is large *and* the number of input data points is large then
        the it will take a very long time to compute the histogram.

    **kwargs :
        other keyword arguments are described in ``plt.hist()``.

    Notes
    -----
    Return values are the same as for ``plt.hist()``

    See Also
    --------
    astropy.stats.histogram
    """
    # Note that we only calculate the bin edges...matplotlib will calculate
    # the actual histogram.
    range = kwargs.get('range', None)
    weights = kwargs.get('weights', None)
    bins = calculate_bin_edges(x, bins, range=range, weights=weights)

    if len(bins) > max_bins:
        raise ValueError('Histogram has too many bins: '
                         '{nbin}. Use max_bins to increase the number '
                         'of allowed bins or range to restrict '
                         'the histogram range.'.format(nbin=len(bins)))

    if ax is None:
        # optional dependency; only import if strictly needed.
        import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
        ax = plt.gca()

    return ax.hist(x, bins, **kwargs)