Re: [matplotlib-devel] puzzle: interactive backend case with ipython

[Darren D. <dar...@co...>]

On Monday 09 June 2008 03:55:47 Eric Firing wrote:
> While investigating a bug pointed out by Andrew (and one that I had
> introduced some time ago) I found to my horror that I had also caused
> another bug: interactive plotting was not working with ipython -pylab.
> I backed out part of r5420, and that fixed the problem.  This temporary
> fix is to restore the mixed case backend names in the interactive_bk
> list that is now set in rcsetup.py and imported by backends/__init__.py.
>
> I am baffled as to why this is needed at present; I have not been able
> to figure out why ipython threading seems to get confused when that list
> has lower case names for gtkagg, qtagg, and wxagg, but not for tkagg or
> qt4agg.  I don't see anywhere in either the ipython or the mpl code that
> should care about the case of the names in that list, now that I have
> ensured that comparisons against backend names in mpl (everywhere I
> could find them--maybe I missed on) are case-insensitive, and
> get_backend() returns only lower case.  rcParams['backend'] can still
> have mixed case, however.
>
> Any suggestions as to what I am missing or where to look?
>
> Related question: I just noticed that there is also a config/rcsetup.py.
>   Is there any reason why there has to be so much duplication (and now
> gradual divergence) between this and the regular rcsetup.py?  Is there
> any reason the traits config system can't use the regular version, maybe
> with some changes merged in?

We should probably discuss the future of TConfig in mpl at some point. Its been 
a while since I looked at it, but basically I was trying to isolate that code 
so it didnt creep into mpl until we were ready. There is lots of duplication 
in config, if you want to change it to import from rcsetup, its alright with 
me.