Displaying X and y axis in pylab

Question

Is there a way in pylab to display the X and Y axis? I know using grid() will display them, but it comes with numerous other lines all given the same emphasis.

Answer 1

It sounds like your problem has been addressed in the new Matplotlib 0.99 with the Axis spine placement feature. Take a look at the examples.

Answer 2

If you are looking to name the axis you can using the label function:

import pylab
pylab.xlabel("X")
pylab.ylabel("Y")
pylab.plot(range(10))
pylab.show()

Anyway, I'm pretty sure the x and y axis are automatically generated.

matplotlib axes documentation

If you just want an empty plot then:

pylab.plot([None], [None])

this will give you the x and y axis with both going from 0 to 1. Now if you would like to change the range of either of those then you can:

pylab.xlim(xmin=0, xmax=100)
pylab.ylim(ymin=0, ymax=100)

hope that helps.

Answer 3

What plot function do you use?

Axis are drawn automatically by all plotting functions I've seen so far, e.g.

from pylab import *
hist(randn(10000), 100)
show()

Additionally, axis can be generated manually with the axes() function.

Answer 4

foo.grid(b=True) should help, but it is very raw.

If you supply any of the additional arguments it automatically assumes that b is True

For example:

foo.grid(label='My awesome grid')

Answer 5

The best way for me is to add vertical and horizontal lines at 0:

pylab.axvline(linewidth=0.5, color = 'k')
pylab.axhline(linewidth=0.5, color = 'k')