scale_fill_binned throws error if all bins have the same value

[sebneus]

I want to print a couple of ggplots in a group_walk loop. But one of the plots only returns values in one bin which resolves in an error.

Here is an example:

library(ggplot2)

data.frame(x = c("a", "b"), 
           y = c("A", "B")) |> 
  ggplot() + 
  geom_bin_2d(aes(x = x, y = y)) + 
  scale_fill_binned()
#> Error in cut.default(x, breaks, labels = FALSE, include.lowest = TRUE, : invalid number of intervals

^{Created on 2022-11-29 with reprex v2.0.2}

If there is a bin with a at least two different numbers (here 1 and 2), the plot succeeds:

library(ggplot2)

data.frame(x = c("a", "b", "b"), 
           y = c("A", "B", "B")) |> 
  ggplot() + 
  geom_bin_2d(aes(x = x, y = y)) + 
  scale_fill_binned()

^{Created on 2022-11-29 with reprex v2.0.2}

If I remove the scale_fill_binned() part the chart is drawn, but with no color steps. Similar (but different) error is thrown if I use guides(fill = "colorsteps"). Using geom_tile(aes(x, y, fill = after_stat(count)), stat = "bin2d") shows the same behaviour.

ggplot version is 3.4.0.

Regards
SebNeu

[jan-glx]

Unfortuneatly @teunbrand 's fix does not quite cut 😛 it for scale_x_binned. See also this example:

library(ggplot2)
ggplot(data.frame(x=1), aes(x=x)) + geom_bar() + scale_x_binned(limits = c(0,1))

ggplot(data.frame(x=1), aes(x=x)) + geom_bar() + scale_x_binned()
#> Error in cut.default(x, all_breaks, labels = FALSE, include.lowest = TRUE, : invalid number of intervals

^{Created on 2023-08-03 by the reprex package (v2.0.1)}

Session info

sessioninfo::session_info()
#> ─ Session info ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
#>  setting  value
#>  version  R version 4.1.0 (2021-05-18)
#>  os       CentOS Linux 7 (Core)
#>  system   x86_64, linux-gnu
#>  ui       X11
#>  language en_US.UTF-8
#>  collate  en_US.UTF-8
#>  ctype    en_US.UTF-8
#>  tz       Europe/Berlin
#>  date     2023-08-03
#>  pandoc   2.19.2 @ /usr/lib/rstudio-server/bin/quarto/bin/tools/ (via rmarkdown)
#> 
#> ─ Packages ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
#>  package     * version    date (UTC) lib source
#>  cli           3.6.1      2023-03-23 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  colorspace    2.0-3      2022-02-21 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  curl          4.3.2      2021-06-23 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  digest        0.6.29     2021-12-01 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  dplyr         1.1.2      2023-04-20 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  evaluate      0.14       2019-05-28 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  fansi         1.0.2      2022-01-14 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  farver        2.1.0      2021-02-28 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  fastmap       1.1.0      2021-01-25 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  fs            1.5.2      2021-12-08 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  generics      0.1.2      2022-01-31 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  ggplot2     * 3.4.2.9000 2023-08-03 [1] Github (tidyverse/ggplot2@cd7199d)
#>  glue          1.6.2      2022-02-24 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  gtable        0.3.0      2019-03-25 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  highr         0.9        2021-04-16 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  htmltools     0.5.5      2023-03-23 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  httr          1.4.2      2020-07-20 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  knitr         1.37       2021-12-16 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  labeling      0.4.2      2020-10-20 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  lifecycle     1.0.3      2022-10-07 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  magrittr      2.0.2      2022-01-26 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  mime          0.12       2021-09-28 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  munsell       0.5.0      2018-06-12 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  pillar        1.9.0      2023-03-22 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  pkgconfig     2.0.3      2019-09-22 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  purrr         1.0.1      2023-01-10 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  R.cache       0.16.0     2022-07-21 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  R.methodsS3   1.8.1      2020-08-26 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  R.oo          1.24.0     2020-08-26 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  R.utils       2.11.0     2021-09-26 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  R6            2.5.1      2021-08-19 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  reprex        2.0.1      2021-08-05 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  rlang         1.1.1      2023-04-28 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  rmarkdown     2.23       2023-07-01 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  rstudioapi    0.13       2020-11-12 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  scales        1.2.1      2022-08-20 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  sessioninfo   1.2.2      2021-12-06 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  stringi       1.7.6      2021-11-29 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  stringr       1.5.0      2022-12-02 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  styler        1.10.1     2023-06-05 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  tibble        3.2.1      2023-03-20 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  tidyselect    1.2.0      2022-10-10 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  utf8          1.2.2      2021-07-24 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  vctrs         0.6.2      2023-04-19 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  withr         2.5.0      2022-03-03 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  xfun          0.39       2023-04-20 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  xml2          1.3.3      2021-11-30 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#>  yaml          2.3.4      2022-02-17 [1] CRAN (R 4.1.0)
#> 
#>  [1] /home/gleixner/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/4.1.0d
#>  [2] /software/r/4.1.0/lib64/R/library
#> 
#> ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

So as a workaround you can specify limits for the binned scale yourself.

I am afraid this issue isn't too much an implementation problem but rather a design question. It is not clear to me how a binned scale should behave without predefined breaks, but I am under the impression that in many cases we don't actually want a scale_x_binned but a scale_x_integer or scale_x_binned_integer?