Draw bar-charts with value_counts() for multiple columns in a Pandas DataFrame - pandas

Question

I'm trying to draw bar-charts with counts of unique values for all columns in a Pandas DataFrame. Kind of what df.hist() does for numerical columns, but I have categorical columns.
I'd prefer to use the object-oriented approach, because if feels more natural and explicit to me.
I'd like to have multiple Axes (subplots) within a single Figure, in a grid fashion (again like what df.hist() does).
My solution below does exactly what I want, but it feels cumbersome. I doubt whether I really need the direct dependency on Matplotlib (and all the code for creating the Figure, removing the unused Axes etc.). I see that pandas.Series.plot has parameters subplots and layout which seem to point to what I want, but maybe I'm totally off here. I tried looping over the columns in my DataFrame and apply these parameters, but I cannot figure it out.
Does anyone know a more compact way to do what I'm trying to achieve?
# Defining the grid-dimensions of the Axes in the Matplotlib Figure
nr_of_plots = len(ames_train_categorical.columns)
nr_of_plots_per_row = 4
nr_of_rows = math.ceil(nr_of_plots / nr_of_plots_per_row)
# Defining the Matplotlib Figure and Axes
figure, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=nr_of_rows, ncols=nr_of_plots_per_row, figsize=(25, 50))
figure.subplots_adjust(hspace=0.5)
# Plotting on the Axes
i, j = 0, 0
for column_name in ames_train_categorical:
if ames_train_categorical[column_name].nunique() <= 30:
axes[i][j].set_title(column_name)
ames_train_categorical[column_name].value_counts().plot(kind='bar', ax=axes[i][j])
j += 1
if j % nr_of_plots_per_row == 0:
i += 1
j = 0
# Cleaning up unused Axes
# plt.subplots creates a square grid of Axes. On the last row, not all Axes will always be used. Unused Axes are removed here.
axes_flattened = axes.flatten()
for ax in axes_flattened:
if not ax.has_data():
ax.remove()
Edit: alternative idea
Using the pyplot/state-machine WoW, you could do it like this with very limited lines of code. But this also has the downside that every graph gets it's own figure, you they're not nicely arranged in a grid.
for column_name in ames_train_categorical:
ames_train_categorical[column_name].value_counts().plot(kind='bar')
plt.show()
Desired output

Answer 1

With the following toy dataframe:
import pandas as pd
df = pd.DataFrame(
{
"MS Zoning": ["RL", "FV", "RL", "RH", "RL", "RL"],
"Street": ["Pave", "Pave", "Pave", "Grvl", "Pave", "Pave"],
"Alley": ["Grvl", "Grvl", "Grvl", "Grvl", "Pave", "Pave"],
"Utilities": ["AllPub", "NoSewr", "AllPub", "AllPub", "NoSewr", "AllPub"],
"Land Slope": ["Gtl", "Mod", "Sev", "Mod", "Sev", "Sev"],
}
)
Here is a bit more idiomatic way to do it:
import math
from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
size = math.ceil(df.shape[1]** (1/2))
fig = plt.figure()
for i, col in enumerate(df.columns):
fig.add_subplot(size, size, i + 1)
df[col].value_counts().plot(kind="bar", ax=plt.gca(), title=col, rot=0)
fig.tight_layout()