Acquire x-axis values in Python matplotlib

Question

Before I ask this question, I have already searched the internet for a while without success. To many experts this surely appears to be fairly simple. Please bear with me.

I am having a plot made by matplotlib and it is returned as a plf.Figure. See the following:

def myplotcode():
    x = np.linspace(0, 2*np.pi)
    y = np.sin(x)
    print("x in external function", x)
    y2 = np.cos(x)
    fig = plf.Figure()
    ax = fig.add_subplot(111)
    ax.plot(x, y, 'bo', x, y2,'gs')
    ax.set_ylabel("Some function")
    return fig, ax

What I want to do in the function that call this one is to be able to get all these x values from the returned ax or fig. Well, I understand one simple solution is just to return x array too. However, I am trying to keep the number of returns as small as possible.

So, my question is: Can I acquire this x-axis array from fig or ax?

Thank you so much in advance.

PerroNoob · Accepted Answer · 2016-10-11 15:51:39Z

1

You can do:

l = ax.axes.lines[0] # If you have more curves, just change the index
x, y = l.get_data()

That will give you two arrays, with the x and y data

answered Oct 11, 2016 at 15:51

PerroNoob

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3 Comments

X... Over a year ago

Thanks, David. This works. I searched the document of axes and didn't come across get_data().

PerroNoob Over a year ago

Yeah, sometimes it is useful to use IPython to get most of the properties or methods in the class by using tab. In this case if you do l. and tab you would see all of the curve properties :)

X... Over a year ago

Will take you advise seriously. Thanks a lot.

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