matplotlib discrepancy with iPython notebook and python file

Question

I have a strange problem with matplotlib that I can not seem to figure out. When using the ipython notebook with the pylab flag, ipython notebook --pylab inline I have a line of code that looks like this that is used to generate a colorbar with matplotlib:

im = ax.imshow(df, vmin=vmin, vmax=vmax)

The code works correctly and I get a nice colorbar. When I run this code as a python file I get an error, NameError: name 'ax' is not defined. I understand that the ipython notebook --pylab inline automatically imports a bunch of stuff into the notebook, but I cannot figure out what I need to import to fix the problem. print type(ax) gives:

<class 'matplotlib.axes.AxesSubplot'>

Can anyone point out why my code works in ipython but not a plain python file? Thanks in advance.

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:00:21Z

5

I had the same problem. Per this entry: How to abbreviate xtick labels years to 2 digits in a matplotlib plot

try defining 'ax' by adding (before the line causing the error):

ax = plt.gca()

edited May 23, 2017 at 12:00

CommunityBot

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answered Mar 7, 2017 at 16:24

kibitzforu

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Thomas K · Accepted Answer · 2012-08-05 11:41:58Z

2

I'm not quite sure what you've done, because aX isn't defined by default as part of pylab.

Normally, ax refers to an axis object. There are a few ways you can get one:

matplotlib.pyplot.gca()            # gca = get current axis
matplotlib.pyplot.subplot(2,1,1)   # For creating multiple plots in one figure
fig.get_axes()[x]                  # Where fig is a Figure object

answered Aug 5, 2012 at 11:41

Thomas K

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