Embedding matplotlib in C

Question

I have a double pointer in C, and I want to plot it with matplotlib from C. I'm not understanding how to do that with the Python/C API. Could someone give me a simple example? A simple code could be some similar to:

#include <Python.h>
#define N 10     

int main(void) {
  double *a_c;
  PyObject *a_python;
  int i;

  a_c = (double*)malloc(sizeof(double)*N);
  for (i=0;i<N;i++)
     a_c[i] = (double)i

  //...a_python = some_function(a_c)....

  /*
  Py_Initialize();
  PyRun_SimpleString("import matplotlib.pyplot as plt");      
  PyRun_SimpleString("plt.plot(a_python)"); ??
  PyRun_SimpleString("plt.show()");
  Py_Exit(0);
  */

  return 0;

}

Thanks in advance!

Why not just write the list into a temporary file and invoke a pure python script to plot it? — timothy
– timothy, Commented Jun 22, 2013 at 1:49
Yes, It's an option, but I want to avoid the hard-disk write for a performance issue. Sometimes, my data is big, or I need a big framerate. It's a part of an MPI code, and I don't want to wait for a write if I have all the data in ram... — Pablo
– Pablo, Commented Jun 22, 2013 at 1:58
It depends of the performance. I'm trying an intermediate solution between hard-data and an interactive session inside C. I think that could be works. But, my dream is to do all the work from the ram... — Pablo
– Pablo, Commented Jun 22, 2013 at 2:16
I understand your concern.but if you embed python with matplotlib into C, that won't be as fast as you think in my own opinion. If the plotting need to be update very frequently, then matplotlib is not the best choice. — timothy
– timothy, Commented Jun 22, 2013 at 2:22

Ethan · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-22 04:30:07Z

1

You can use Cython to call C code from python scripts, if you are willing to write a python master script that calls your c code and deals with the plotting.

answered Jun 22, 2013 at 4:30

Ethan

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