plotly / plotly/plotly.js

X-axis type lost after restyle

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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

If i create a bar chart with a categorical x-axis, where the x-values are strings of digits, then restyle it with new y-values, the categoricality of the x-axis is lost, and it becomes linear, as if the type had been freshly inferred from the values.

Here is a self-contained example (i'm afraid i don't have a codepen account):

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
    <head>
        <meta charset="UTF-8">
        <title>Restyle</title>
        <script src="https://cdn.plot.ly/plotly-latest.js"></script>
        <script>
            addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", () => {
                const plot = document.getElementById("plot");

                Plotly.newPlot(plot,
                               {
                                   data: [{
                                       type: "bar",
                                       x: ["2", "5", "10", "30", "50"],
                                       y: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
                                   }],
                                   layout: {
                                       xaxis: {type: "category"}
                                   },
                                   config: {
                                       responsive: true
                                   }
                               });

                document.getElementById("restyle").addEventListener("click", () => {
                    Plotly.restyle(plot, {y: [[5, 4, 3, 2, 1]]}, 0);
                });
            });
        </script>
    </head>
    <body>
        <div id="plot"></div>
        <button id="restyle">Restyle</button>
    </body>
</html>

When the page loads, the x-axis is correctly categorical, but when you click the button, it becomes incorrectly linear.

I believe this is the same problem as described in the forum post "X-axis “category” type not honored after Plotly.restyle".

Contributor guide

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First steps

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  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

Start by running the self-contained HTML example with Plotly.newPlot and Plotly.restyle, then trace the restyle path that updates the bar chart. Done means the x-axis remains categorical after the y-values are replaced, rather than being re-inferred as linear.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
javascript
Domain
data-visualization
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
45/100

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