What Is Python Matplotlib?¶

Matplotlib is a low level graph plotting library in python that serves as a visualization utility.
Matplotlib was created by John D. Hunter.
Matplotlib is open source and we can use it freely.

Matplotlib is mostly written in python, a few segments are written in C, Objective-C and Javascript for Platform compatibility. matplotlib.pyplot is a plotting library used for 2D graphics in python programming language. It can be used in python scripts, shell, web application servers and other graphical user interface toolkits.

Python Matplotlib : Types of Plots¶

There are various plots which can be created using python matplotlib. Some of them are listed below:

Documentation :¶

https://matplotlib.org/stable/api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.plot.html

matplotlib.pyplot is a collection of command style functions that make matplotlib work like MATLAB. Each pyplot function makes some change to a figure: e.g., creates a figure, creates a plotting area in a figure, plots some lines in a plotting area, decorates the plot with labels, etc.

Matplotlib Instalation¶

pip install matplotlib

Importing pyplot¶

from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
or
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

import matplotlib
print(matplotlib.__version__)

3.0.2

Available Style¶

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.style.available

['bmh',
 'classic',
 'dark_background',
 'fast',
 'fivethirtyeight',
 'ggplot',
 'grayscale',
 'seaborn-bright',
 'seaborn-colorblind',
 'seaborn-dark-palette',
 'seaborn-dark',
 'seaborn-darkgrid',
 'seaborn-deep',
 'seaborn-muted',
 'seaborn-notebook',
 'seaborn-paper',
 'seaborn-pastel',
 'seaborn-poster',
 'seaborn-talk',
 'seaborn-ticks',
 'seaborn-white',
 'seaborn-whitegrid',
 'seaborn',
 'Solarize_Light2',
 'tableau-colorblind10',
 '_classic_test']

Format Strings¶

A format string consists of a part for color, marker and line:

fmt = '[marker][line][color]'

Markers

character	description
.	point marker
,	pixel marker
o	circle marker
v	triangle_down marker
^	triangle_up marker
<	triangle_left marker
>	triangle_right marker
1	tri_down marker
2	tri_up marker
3	tri_left marker
4	tri_right marker
s	square marker
p	pentagon marker
*	star marker
h	hexagon1 marker
H	hexagon2 marker
+	plus marker
x	x marker
D	diamond marker
d	thin_diamond marker
‘	vline marker
_	hline marker

Line Styles

character	description
–	solid line style
—	dashed line style
-.	dash-dot line style
:	dotted line style

Example	format strings:
b	blue markers with default shape
or	red circles
-g	green solid line
—	dashed line with default color
^k:	black triangle_up markers connected by a dotted line