Hi all,
I'd like to bring up a question spurred by PRs #847(mine) and #819
(recently accepted). These PRs both deal with stacked plots. #819 adds the
stackplot function to axes.py as a new function, which plots different 2-d
datasets stacked atop each other. #847 slightly modifies the functioning of
`hist` in axes.py by adding a new kwarg which allows datasets to be
stacked. Currently this is only possible using the `barstacked` histtype.
#847 makes it also work with the `step` and `stepfilled` histtypes.
One of the issues that has been raised in the comments of #847 is whether
we want to take this opportunity to come up with a unified way to handle
"stacked-ness". Michael Droettboom suggested I raise this issue on this
list. So far, there are 3 different approaches:
1. The state before #819. AFAIK the only way to do any sort of stacking was
to call `hist` with `histtype="barstacked"`. This treats stacked histograms
as a different type of histogram than non-stacked histograms. One of my
motivations for writing #847 was to get stacked step and stepfilled
histograms, which would require adding several new histtypes (stepstacked
and stepfilledstacked). It seems to me that histtype mostly controls the
style of the histogram plotted, and shouldn't have anything to do with
"stacked-ness", so I think this is kind of clunky.
2. The approach I take in #847. Add a new kwarg which controls whether or
not multiple datasets are stacked. I think this is the cleanest
implementation, although that's probably obvious because it's how I wrote
my PR. To keep everything consistent in this approach, we should remove the
stackplot function added in #819, and move that functionality to the `plot`
function, adding a `stacked` kwarg there.
3. The approach of #819. With this approach, we would add a separate
function to handle stacked versions of different plots. I'd re-write #847
as a new function called `stackhist`. This approach, IMO, doesn't scale
well if we want to add "stacked-ness" to more plot types in the future.
Please take a look at this and send comments about these proposals or any
others you might have. I hope the community can come to a consensus which
unifies the handling of stacked-ness.
Whatever we end up choosing, I think adding a stacked step histogram will
make it much easier to promote the use of mpl in high energy physics, where
we use this style of plot frequently.
Thanks,
Nic Eggert
Graduate Fellow
Cornell University
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