how to output the data set when using histogram in mathematica

Question

In Mma, the Histogram function only generates graphics. I am wondering how I can to get the data set; is there any convenient built-in function for this?

Many thanks.

Answer 1

HistogramList was added to Mathematica V8 to expose the binning and height calculations.

HistogramList[a]

For V7 you can hack the third argument to get the bins and counts.

Histogram[a, Automatic, (Print[{##}]; #2) &]