nushell/docs/commands/histogram.md

# histogram

Creates a new table with a histogram based on the column name passed in.

Syntax: `histogram <column_name>  ...args`

### Parameters

* `<column-name>`: name of the column to graph by
* `args`: column name to give the histogram's frequency column

## Examples

Let's say we have this file `random_numers.csv` which contains 50 random numbers.

**Note**: The input doesn't have to be numbers it works on strings too. Try it out.

```shell
> open random_numbers.csv
open random_numbers2.csv
━━━━┯━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 #  │ random numbers 
────┼────────────────
  0 │ 0 
  1 │ 5 
  2 │ 5 
   ...
 47 │ 0 
 48 │ 2 
 49 │ 4 
━━━━┷━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
```

If we now want to see how often the different numbers were generated, we can use the `histogram` function:

```shell
> open random_numbers2.csv | histogram "random numbers"
━━━┯━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┯━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 # │ random numbers │ frequency 
───┼────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 0 │ 0              │ **************************************************************************************************** 
 1 │ 1              │ ****************************** 
 2 │ 2              │ ************************************************************* 
 3 │ 3              │ ********************************************************************* 
 4 │ 4              │ ***************************************************** 
 5 │ 5              │ ********************************************************************* 
━━━┷━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┷━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
```

We can also set the name of the second column or sort the table: 

```shell
> open random_numbers2.csv | histogram "random numbers" probability
━━━┯━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┯━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 # │ random numbers │ probability 
───┼────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 0 │ 0              │ **************************************************************************************************** 
 1 │ 1              │ ****************************** 
 2 │ 2              │ ************************************************************* 
 3 │ 3              │ ********************************************************************* 
 4 │ 4              │ ***************************************************** 
 5 │ 5              │ ********************************************************************* 
━━━┷━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┷━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

```

```shell
> open random_numbers2.csv | histogram "random numbers" probability | sort-by probability
━━━┯━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┯━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 # │ random numbers │ probability 
───┼────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 0 │ 1              │ ****************************** 
 1 │ 4              │ ***************************************************** 
 2 │ 2              │ ************************************************************* 
 3 │ 3              │ ********************************************************************* 
 4 │ 5              │ ********************************************************************* 
 5 │ 0              │ **************************************************************************************************** 
━━━┷━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┷━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

```