plotly / plotly/plotly.js

Multi-category sorting misbehaves with missing categories

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bug P3
Dominant language
JavaScript
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

Originally reported in https://github.com/plotly/plotly.py/issues/1491.

There seems to a multi-category sorting bug that wasn't fixed by #3362.

CodePen: https://codepen.io/jonmmease/pen/VNeEqq?editors=1010

var fig = {
  "data": [
    {
      "name": "Fruits",
      "type": "bar",
      "x": [
        [
          2017,
          2017,
          2017,
          2017,
          2017,
          2017,
          2017,
          2017,
          2018,
          2018,
          2018,
          2018
        ],
        [
          4,
          5,
          6,
          8,
          9,
          10,
          11,
          12,
          1,
          2,
          3,
          4
        ]
      ],
      "y": [
        57246.0,
        1587.0,
        63189.0,
        30680.0,
        26071.0,
        117519.0,
        27519.0,
        42643.0,
        8559.0,
        22355.0,
        59363.0,
        62955.0
      ]
    },
    {
      "name": "Price",
      "type": "scatter",
      "x": [
        [
          2017,
          2017,
          2017,
          2017,
          2017,
          2017,
          2017,
          2017,
          2018,
          2018,
          2018,
          2018
        ],
        [
          4,
          5,
          6,
          8,
          9,
          10,
          11,
          12,
          1,
          2,
          3,
          4
        ]
      ],
      "y": [
        0.22991999,
        0.27284184,
        0.18438336,
        0.24866362,
        0.18280848,
        0.19382398,
        0.17268069,
        0.18802617,
        0.17560463,
        0.13415343,
        0.14773512,
        0.31319196
      ],
      "yaxis": "y2"
    }
  ],
  "layout": {
    "height": 600,
    "showlegend": true,
    "yaxis": {
      "showgrid": true,
      "title": {
        "text": "Fruits volume"
      }
    },
    "yaxis2": {
      "anchor": "x",
      "overlaying": "y",
      "showgrid": false,
      "side": "right",
      "title": {
        "text": "Price per unit"
      }
    }
  }
}

Plotly.newPlot('myDiv', fig, {showSendToCloud: true});

newplot-8

The problem is that in the second multi-category (2018), the 4 is sorted before 1, 2, 3 even though they are specified in ascending sorted order.

As noted in https://github.com/plotly/plotly.py/issues/1491, this seems to happen for categories that are not present in the first multi-category (2017).

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Reproduce the behavior using the supplied CodePen example and the Plotly.newPlot configuration, focusing on multi-category axis sorting when a category appears only in the later group. Compare the displayed order with the specified ascending order; done means the second multi-category sorts 1, 2, 3, 4 while preserving the reported behavior across the example.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
javascript
Domain
data-visualization
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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