plot.histogram.bins ignored for low-cardinality numeric features even when low_categorical_threshold = 0

[JSBaxter]

Current Behaviour

Even when explicitly configuring plot.histogram.bins and setting vars.num.low_categorical_threshold = 0, YData Profiling fails to respect the number of bins for numeric features with low cardinality (e.g. [0.2, 0.4, ..., 1.0]).

This results in bar plots or underspecified histograms, despite numeric treatment being forced. This appears to be a bug, as user configuration should override internal heuristics. The behaviour appears to be due to the following line:

ydata-profiling/src/ydata_profiling/model/summary_algorithms.py

Line 40 in c3ce66c

bins_arg = "auto" if hist_config.bins == 0 else min(hist_config.bins, n_unique)

Expected Behaviour

I would expect that when the number of bins is set explicitly by the user that this is respected.

Alternatively there should at least be some additional configuration variable bins_override which allows the user to explicitly state the number of bins and override heuristics.

Instead of:

ydata-profiling/src/ydata_profiling/model/summary_algorithms.py

Line 40 in c3ce66c

bins_arg = "auto" if hist_config.bins == 0 else min(hist_config.bins, n_unique)

it would be nice to have something like:

if hist_config.bins_override: 
    bins_arg = hist_config.bins_override
else:
    bins_arg = "auto" if hist_config.bins == 0 else min(hist_config.bins, n_unique)

Data Description

Any numeric dataset with cardinality lower than the number of bins

Code that reproduces the bug

import pandas as pd
from ydata_profiling import ProfileReport

df = pd.DataFrame({"x": [0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0] * 20})

profile = ProfileReport(
    df,
    explorative=True
)
profile.config.vars.num.low_categorical_threshold = 0
profile.config.plot.histogram.bins = 30

profile.to_file("report.html")

pandas-profiling version

v4.16.1

Dependencies

ydata-profiling==4.16.1

OS

No response

Checklist

• There is not yet another bug report for this issue in the issue tracker
• The problem is reproducible from this bug report. This guide can help to craft a minimal bug report.
• The issue has not been resolved by the entries listed under Common Issues.