How to prevent drawing bars in a bar chart when all values are zero?

[mwaibel-go]

Consider this minimal example:

Plot.plot({
  marks: [
    Plot.barY([0])
  ]
})

It produces the following graph:

This bar’s height gives the impression of a non-zero value. I would rather there was no bar present. How can I achieve that without pre-filtering the data? I would also like to avoid setting the axis’ range manually, because the inferred range usually is fine.

[Fil]

If you want the y domain to never be collapsed, you could introduce a mark that adds a non-zero value into the domain; and you can use filter: false to make this mark render nothing.

Plot.plot({
  marks: [
    Plot.tickY([1], { filter: false }),
    Plot.barY([0])
  ]
})

[mwaibel-go]

This works, thank you.

However, I can’t shake the feeling that this is more of a workaround than a solution. I can’t think of an instance where a <rect> with a non-zero height would accurately represent the range [y, y].

Edit: In case someone finds this in the future: PR 470 has a bit of discussion about the topic.