Plot multiple bars in matplotlib

Question

def plotbars(hists, bins, labels, filename):
    plt.figure()
    center = (bins[:-1] + bins[1:]) / 2
    width = 0.7 * (bins[1] - bins[0])
    for hist in hists:
        plt.bar(center, hist, align='center', width=width)
    plt.legend(labels)
    plt.savefig(filename)

If I plot histograms like this plotbars([hist1, hist2], bins, ['hist1', 'hist2'], 'histo.png'), this plots the histograms on top of each other. I want to the bars of the histogram to be adjacent. The bin width for each are equal.

It would be much easier for us if you can provide a Minimal, Complete, and Verifiable Example. — DavidG
– DavidG, Commented Jul 4, 2017 at 12:43
Do you mean adjacent in the same figure? Then you have to shift your center to the right in each iteration. For instance to center = [c + offset for c in center], where offset = bins[-1] - bins[0], in every iteration of your for-loop, or some such. — Thomas Kühn
– Thomas Kühn, Commented Jul 4, 2017 at 12:44

error · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-04 14:03:51Z

1

try using plt.hist instead of plt.bar.

hist1=[x for x in range(0,10)]*10
hist2= [x for x in range(0,10)]*2
plt.hist([hist1,hist2],bins = 10)

Yields this image:

Is this how you would like to see your graph?

Update:

x axis can be properly formatted using the following.

bin_list = [x for x in range(0,11) ]
plt.hist([hist1,hist2], bins=bin_list ,align='left')

Resulting in a proper spaced x axis. For some reason it appears bins must be set as a list for proper spacing of x values.

https://matplotlib.org/api/pyplot_api.html#matplotlib.pyplot.xticks

For further tweaking you can try to play around with plt.xticks().

edited Jul 4, 2017 at 14:03

answered Jul 4, 2017 at 12:47

error

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1 Comment

canonball Over a year ago

Yes, I'd like a graph that looks like this. But how do I plot x axis properly?

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