Bug summary

plt.hist with bin='auto' struggles when the data has a long tail. This was discovered in the context of levy- and levy_l- distributed data (see scipy/scipy#14563), but I've included a pathological example below.

Code for reproduction

# natural example
from scipy.stats import levy_l
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
r = levy_l().rvs(size=1000)
plt.hist(r, bins='auto')

# pathological example
plt.hist([1, 2, 3, 4, 1e6], bins='auto')

Actual outcome

Very-long execution, hanging, or crashing depending on the specific example. Once I got a memory error, I think.

Expected outcome

A plot

Additional information

See scipy/scipy#14563

Operating system

Windows

Matplotlib Version

3.5.2

Matplotlib Backend

module://matplotlib_inline.backend_inline

Python version

3.10.5

Jupyter version

NA

Installation

conda