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The following does not work:

enter image description here

However this totally works in Jupiter Notebook.

enter image description here

If I simply comment it out, the graph doesn't show up. (Maybe it won't show up anyways)

import pandas as pd import matplotlib from numpy.random import randn import numpy as np import matplotlib.pyplot as plt df = pd.read_csv('data/playgolf.csv', delimiter='|' ) print(df.head()) hs = df.hist(['Temperature','Humidity'], bins=5) print(hs)
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  • 1
    % being used like that isn't valid Python syntax. This must be an operator unique to Jupiter, because normally % represents the modulo; that is, the remainder when one number is divided by another. Commented May 28, 2017 at 7:57
  • 2
    Jupiter Notebook has features that aren't part of the Python language itself. All the %-prefixed commands are special extensions, not regular Python statements. Commented May 28, 2017 at 7:57
  • @Blckknght would you recommend and alternatives? Commented May 28, 2017 at 7:59
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    You should be able to simply leave the %matplotlib inline part out. That only has meaning within Jupiter Notebook: it makes matplotlib's plots appear within the notebook cells instead of as separate windows. Since you don't have a notebook window for them to be embedded in, the separate windows are the only way to go. Commented May 28, 2017 at 8:02
  • @ZHU You can add c.InteractiveShellApp.matplotlib = 'inline' in $HOME/.ipython/profile_default/ipython_config.py so you won't bother with %matplotlib inline anymore :-) Commented May 22, 2018 at 17:56

3 Answers 3

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16

Other answers and comments have sufficiently detailed why %matplotlib inline cannot work in python scripts.

To solve the actual problem, which is to show the plot in a script, the answer is to use

plt.show()

at the end of the script.

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however this works in showing the plot in a matplotlib window, but doesn't automatically display the plot in a notebook if the script is called from the notebbok itself and the backend is not inline. HuynhTan's answer works in both cases.
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If you are using notebook and run my_file.py file as a module

Change the line "%matplotlib inline" to "get_ipython().run_line_magic('matplotlib', 'inline')". Then run my_file.py using this %run It should look like this:

In my_file.py:

get_ipython().run_line_magic('matplotlib', 'inline')

In notebook:

%run my_file.py

This run my_file.py in ipython, which help avoid the bug

NameError: name 'get_ipython' is not defined

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3

According to http://ipython.readthedocs.io/en/stable/interactive/magics.html, % is a special iPython/Jupyter command:

Define an alias for a system command.

%alias alias_name cmd defines alias_name as an alias for cmd

In standard Python, % takes the remainder when one number is divided by another (or can be used for string interpolation), so in a standard Python program, %matplotlib inline doesn't make any sense. It does, however, work in iPython, as described above.

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