Re: [Matplotlib-users] Several histograms on one set of axes?

[John H. <jdh...@ac...>]

>>>>> "Sarah" == Sarah Mount <mou...@gm...> writes:

    Sarah> Hi all, maybe this is a daft question, but is there a
    Sarah> simple way of drawing several histograms on top of one
    Sarah> another on the same axes?

    Sarah> Right now I can't even figure out how to change the bar
    Sarah> colour in a script. I've looked through the code in axes.py
    Sarah> and this looks like it *ought* to be right, but isn't:

    Sarah> ax1 = pylab.axes(...)  n, bins, patches = ax1.hist(data,
    Sarah> color='r')

    Sarah> Any ideas would be very much appreciated ...

Ahh yes, the docs could be a little clearer.  They say

        kwargs are used to update the properties of the
        hist bars

To make sense of this you would need to know that the bars are
matplotlib.patch.Rectangle objects, and know what properties could be
set on them.  We have a goal of making the documentation thorough with
respect to kwargs.  In the meantime, scroll through the rectangle
class documentation at
http://matplotlib.sf.net/matplotlib.patches.html for insight.

Here is a hint about how to find these kinds of things out yourself:
Fire up an interactive python shell with support for matplotlib (see
http://matplotlib.sf.net/interactive.html).  I use ipython
(http://ipython.scipy.org) in pylab mode.  Make a histogram and use
the setp functionality to inspect the properties of the patches
returned by hist.   patches are 2D objects like polygons, circles and
rectangles.

johnh@jitter:~> ipython -pylab
/home/titan/johnh/local/lib/python2.3/site-packages/matplotlib/__init__.py:892:
Python 2.3.4 (#12, Jul  2 2004, 09:48:10)
Type "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
IPython 0.7.2.svn -- An enhanced Interactive Python.
?       -> Introduction to IPython's features.
%magic  -> Information about IPython's 'magic' % functions.
help    -> Python's own help system.
object? -> Details about 'object'. ?object also works, ?? prints more.

  Welcome to pylab, a matplotlib-based Python environment.
  For more information, type 'help(pylab)'.

In [1]: n,bins,patches = hist(randn(1000), 20)

In [2]: setp(patches)
    alpha: float
    animated: [True | False]
    antialiased or aa: [True | False]
    bounds: (left, bottom, width, height)
    clip_box: a matplotlib.transform.Bbox instance
    clip_on: [True | False]
    edgecolor or ec: any matplotlib color - see help(colors)
    facecolor or fc: any matplotlib color - see help(colors)
    figure: a matplotlib.figure.Figure instance
    fill: [True | False]
    hatch: unknown
    height: float
    label: any string
    linewidth or lw: float
    lod: [True | False]
    transform: a matplotlib.transform transformation instance
    visible: [True | False]
    width: float
    x: float
    y: float
    zorder: any number


Scrolling through this list, you see things like edgecolor and
facecolor.  You can pass these as kwargs to hist, or use setp

In [3]: setp(patches, edgecolor='g', facecolor='b', linewidth=2);

Hope this helps,
JDH