[Matplotlib-users] Maidir le: Maidir le: Memory leak when using pyplot.ion() ?

[OCuanachain, O. (Oisin) <Ois...@ls...>]

-----Bunteachtaireacht-----
From: Eric Firing [mailto:ef...@ha...] 
Sent: 14 October 2013 19:09
To: mat...@li...
Subject: Re: [Matplotlib-users] Maidir le: Memory leak when using pyplot.ion() ?

On 2013/10/14 7:48 AM, OCuanachain, Oisin (Oisin) wrote:
> Hi Mike,
>
> ion(), ioff() are useful to get immediate feedback when developing a 
> script, when it is fully debugged I then increase the number of 
> iterations and leave it running over the weekend. At that point I 
> could obviously also have removed ion(), ioff() but given that I had 
> no idea that this was necessary my sim crashed and I lost a weekend's 
> worth of sim time. Anyway, whether or not ion(),ioff() are needed in 
> this particular script is really besides the point. If the script, 
> however unusual, is revealing a bug in matplotlib it should be logged 
> so that it can hopefully be fixed.
>
> Oisín

Oisín,

Certainly we want to find and fix bugs, with memory leaks being high priority. (I don't think we have seen a genuine mpl memory leak for quite a while; I am not aware of any at present.) We are not trying to maintain old mpl versions such as 1.0.1, however.  You are using the emf backend, which has been removed.  Therefore, unless you can reproduce the problem with mpl 1.3.x or 1.4.x in a SSCCE (http://sscce.org/), it is unlikely that your report will lead to a bug fix.  Perhaps it will lead to some useful insight, however.

I see someone has suggested that the problem might be in Windows. 
Another possibility is that it is in TkAgg, which I suspect is your default interactive backend.  I dimly recall that there was a time when TkAgg could leak memory, but I don't remember whether that was fixed by
1.0.1 or not.

Eric


Hi Eric, 

If .emf is no longer supported in current versions of matplotlib is there an alternative SVG-type format I can use ? I use .emf because I find that it tends to produce the clearest plots independent of how I re-size them when imported into documents. If memory serves I used to have a lot of problems with legibility when using raster-type formats like .png. If I get a chance I will try installing an up-to-date version of matplotlib and see if I can re-produce the behaviour. 

Oisin.