Should LinearColormap.to_step(n=1) create a one-step colormap?

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#222 opened on Jun 22, 2026 1 comment 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Assessment

Difficulty: 2/5
Estimated time: 1-3 hours
Newbie friendliness: 58/100

Issue type: Bug
Clarity: Mostly clear
Activity status: Quiet
Tech stack: python
Domain: data-visualization

Research direction

Start in branca/colormap.py around LinearColormap.to_step, where the n - 1.0 calculation raises for n=1, and reproduce the failure from the issue. Determine the intended single-step behavior from the existing API and surrounding tests; done means the chosen behavior is implemented, clearly specified, and covered by a regression test.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

LinearColormap(...).to_step(n=1) raises a ZeroDivisionError.

In map/choropleth workflows, after filtering or classification, there may be only one bucket/class to display, and a one-step colormap seems semantically reasonable.

Currently, we get:

❯ uv run --with branca python
Python 3.12.3 (main, Mar 23 2026, 19:04:32) [GCC 13.3.0] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import branca
>>> from branca.colormap import LinearColormap
>>> print(branca.__version__)
0.8.2
>>> 
>>> cm = LinearColormap(["red", "blue"], vmin=0, vmax=1)
>>> cm.to_step(n=1)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File ".../branca/colormap.py", line 450, in to_step
    index[i] * (1.0 - i / (n - 1.0)) + index[i + 1] * i / (n - 1.0),
                      ~~^~~~~~~~~~~
ZeroDivisionError: float division by zero

The API says n is the expected number of colors in the output StepColormap. When no index/data is supplied it constructs a regular grid from n; later, it computes colors using n - 1.0, which fails at n=1.

Possibilities:

Could to_step(n=1) to return a StepColormap with one color/bin?
Or should n <= 1 be explicitly rejected with a clear ValueError?
Or a mention in the docs stating that callers need to special-case single-class data?

Dominant language: Python
Stars: 134
Forks: 69
Avg merge: 1h 10m
Merged PRs (30d): 1

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