How to normalize a histogram in python?

Question

I\'m trying to plot normed histogram, but instead of getting 1 as maximum value on y axis, I\'m getting different numbers.

For array k=(1,4,3,1)

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Answer 1

A normed histogram is defined such that the sum of products of width and height of each column is equal to the total count. That's why you are not getting your max equal to one.

However, if you still want to force it to be 1, you could use numpy and matplotlib.pyplot.bar in the following way

sample = np.random.normal(0,10,100)
#generate bins boundaries and heights
bin_height,bin_boundary = np.histogram(sample,bins=10)
#define width of each column
width = bin_boundary[1]-bin_boundary[0]
#standardize each column by dividing with the maximum height
bin_height = bin_height/float(max(bin_height))
#plot
plt.bar(bin_boundary[:-1],bin_height,width = width)
plt.show()