Slacy’s Blog

ipython & pylab, especially when you include numpy and matplotlib, make a fantastic replacement for gnuplot. Imagine if you had the plotting capabilities of Mathematica, but the ease of use of Python. Thats what this combo gives you.

First, you need to install all the right bits. I’ve got links above, and each link should have a good install tutorial. For linux distributions, this is particularly easy. Just use yum or apt-get.

Start off by running the interactive ipython shell in pylab mode:

# ipython -pylab

Then, once you’re there, lets do a simple plot:

>> your_data = load(”./datafile”)
>> plot(your_data);
>> legend()

The file ‘datafile’ could look something like this:

1 2 3
2 3 4
3 2 3
4 1 2
5 0 1
6 1 0
7 2 1
8 3 2
9 2 3

The plot() function will pop up a window that looks like this:

Pretty easy, huh?

The great part about this combination is the number of other transformations that you can do on the data. So, any sort of other data analysis that you’d like to do (sorting, contour, histogramming, etc.) is all built in to either matplotlib, numpy, or pylab. Excellent!

Tags: gnuplot, ipython, matplotlib, numpy, pylab

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 30th, 2008 at 9:24 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.