Based on my understanding from this question %matplotlib inline is used so figures can be shown in Jupyter. But figures are shown in Jupyter without using %matplotlib inline perfectly fine. for example the following code:
import numpy as np import matplotlib.pyplot as plt plt.plot(np.random.randn(50).cumsum()) plt.show() So is %matplotlib inline obsolete or am I misunderstanding it's purpose?
The default matplotlib backend in a jupyter notebook is inline. You can inspect this by using print(plt.get_backend()) after loading matplotlib. For example:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt print(plt.get_backend()) returns module://ipykernel.pylab.backend_inline
The magic %matplotlib can be used to switch back to inline if you had switched to some other backend. The following cells can illustrate this when run in a notebook.
In [100]:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt plt.plot(np.random.randn(50).cumsum()) In [101]:
%matplotlib notebook plt.plot(np.random.randn(50).cumsum()) In [103]:
%matplotlib inline plt.plot(np.random.randn(50).cumsum()) 
print(plt.get_backend())you'll see it isipykernel.pylab.backend_inlineright from the start. If you switch to some other backend you can use that magic to switch back.