[BUG]: px.sunburst / px.treemap / px.icicle with path give a different sector order on every run for Polars DataFrames
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Description
Description
When path= is used with a Polars DataFrame, px.sunburst, px.treemap and px.icicle build their ids / labels / parents / values arrays in a different order every time the script is run. The same data as a pandas DataFrame or a PyArrow table always gives the same order: the order in which the sectors first appear in the data.
The cause is in process_dataframe_hierarchy (plotly/express/_core.py). Each level of the hierarchy is built with df.group_by(path[i:]).agg(...). With pandas (narwhals uses sort=False) and PyArrow the groups come back in order of first appearance, but Polars' group_by does not guarantee any order, so the order of the output changes from run to run.
Consequences:
fig.to_json()/fig.write_html()output is not reproducible with Polars input (snapshot tests, caching, diffs of generated HTML).- With
sort=False, or when sectors have equal values, the chart itself is laid out differently on each run. - Polars results differ from pandas / PyArrow results for identical data.
Screenshots/Video
N/A: the difference is in the figure data; see the output below.
Steps to reproduce
import plotly
import plotly.express as px
import polars as pl
df = pl.DataFrame(
{
"region": ["South", "North", "South", "West", "North", "West"],
"sector": ["Tech", "Finance", "Finance", "Tech", "Tech", "Finance"],
"sales": [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6],
}
)
fig = px.sunburst(df, path=["region", "sector"], values="sales")
print(plotly.__version__, pl.__version__, list(fig.data[0].ids))
Running the script three times (plotly 7.1.0, polars 1.44.2):
7.1.0 1.44.2 ['West/Tech', 'West/Finance', 'North/Finance', 'South/Finance', 'North/Tech', 'South/Tech', 'South', 'North', 'West']
7.1.0 1.44.2 ['South/Tech', 'West/Tech', 'North/Tech', 'South/Finance', 'North/Finance', 'West/Finance', 'West', 'North', 'South']
7.1.0 1.44.2 ['South/Tech', 'West/Tech', 'North/Tech', 'North/Finance', 'South/Finance', 'West/Finance', 'West', 'South', 'North']
With pd.DataFrame(...) instead, every run prints:
['South/Tech', 'North/Finance', 'South/Finance', 'West/Tech', 'North/Tech', 'West/Finance', 'South', 'North', 'West']
Notes
I have a small fix with a regression test and will open a PR for it.
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start in plotly/express/_core.py at process_dataframe_hierarchy and trace the group_by calls used for path-based charts. Compare the Polars, pandas, and PyArrow hierarchy ordering, then inspect the regression test included or proposed by the reporter. Done means repeated Polars runs produce stable, first-appearance ordering consistent with the other supported inputs.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- python
- Domain
- data-visualization
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 3/5
- Estimated time
- 1-2 days
- Activity status
- Active
- Clarity
- Clearly specified
- Newbie friendliness
- 35/100