ENH: Allowing plotting for non-numeric and non-date datatypes in `DataFrame.hist`

[Rylie-W]

Feature Type

• Adding new functionality to pandas

• Changing existing functionality in pandas

• Removing existing functionality in pandas

Problem Description

When using matplotlib as the backend, pandas.DataFrame.hist() only supports plotting for numeric and datetype data,

pandas/pandas/plotting/_matplotlib/hist.py

Lines 464 to 512 in 5cf5c73

	def hist_frame(
	data,
	column=None,
	by=None,
	grid: bool = True,
	xlabelsize: int | None = None,
	xrot=None,
	ylabelsize: int | None = None,
	yrot=None,
	ax=None,
	sharex: bool = False,
	sharey: bool = False,
	figsize: tuple[float, float] | None = None,
	layout=None,
	bins: int = 10,
	legend: bool = False,
	**kwds,
	):
	if legend and "label" in kwds:
	raise ValueError("Cannot use both legend and label")
	if by is not None:
	axes = _grouped_hist(
	data,
	column=column,
	by=by,
	ax=ax,
	grid=grid,
	figsize=figsize,
	sharex=sharex,
	sharey=sharey,
	layout=layout,
	bins=bins,
	xlabelsize=xlabelsize,
	xrot=xrot,
	ylabelsize=ylabelsize,
	yrot=yrot,
	legend=legend,
	**kwds,
	)
	return axes
	if column is not None:
	if not isinstance(column, (list, np.ndarray, ABCIndex)):
	column = [column]
	data = data[column]
	# GH32590
	data = data.select_dtypes(
	include=(np.number, "datetime64", "datetimetz"), exclude="timedelta"
	)

whereas matplotlib.axes.Axes.hist() and pandas.Series.hist() support a wider range of data types. We can consider allowing users to specify the numeric_only parameter to determine whether to plot only numeric columns or all columns in the chart.

For reproducing:

import pandas as pd
import numpy as np

df = pd.DataFrame(dict(a=np.random.normal(size=100), b=np.random.normal(size=100)+100, c=np.random.choice(['A', 'B'], size=100), d=np.random.choice(['C', 'D'], size=100)))

df['d'].hist() # <AxesSubplot: title={'center': 'b'}>
df.hist() # array([[<AxesSubplot: title={'center': 'a'}>, <AxesSubplot: title={'center': 'b'}>]], dtype=object)

Besides, the title for the histogram of df['d'].hist() is wrong and it could be fixed in my PR for issue #53281
I have completed a draft implementation, and if necessary, I can create a pull request.

Feature Description

Allowing plotting for a wider range of datatypes in DataFrame.hist

Alternative Solutions

Haven't found one.

Additional Context

No response