Re: [Matplotlib-users] [matplotlib-devel] pyplot functions: do you rely on the "hold" kwarg?

[Nathaniel S. <nj...@po...>]

On Sun, Jun 7, 2015 at 2:37 PM, Eric Firing <ef...@ha...> wrote:
> Matplotlib's pyplot retains quite a few vestiges from its original
> Matlab-workalike heritage; we would like to gradually eliminate those
> that no longer make sense.  One such candidate is the "hold" kwarg that
> every pyplot function has, with a "True" default.  I don't think it
> serves any useful purpose now, and getting rid of it would allow
> considerable simplification to the code and, to a lesser extent, the
> documentation.  The default behavior would not change, only the ability
> to change that behavior via either the rcParams['axes.hold'] parameter
> or the "hold" kwarg in a pyplot function call.
>
> If you routinely use 'hold=False' and believe that removing it would be
> a mistake, please let us know.

I do actually use it with some regularity interactively, though I'm
not particularly attached to it. Is there some equivalent though, like
   plt.whatever(..., hold=False)
can become
   plt.clear(); plt.whatever(...)
? The semantics would be that the current figure remains the current
figure, but is reset so that the next operation starts from scratch. I
notice that plt.clear() does not exist, but maybe it has another
spelling :-).

(Basically the use case here is getting something like the
edit-and-rerun-a-cell workflow, but when using a classic interactive
REPL rather than the ipython notebook -- so I have a specific plot
window up on my screen at a size and place where I can see it, and
maybe some other plots in other windows in the background somewhere,
and I want to quickly display different things into that window.)

-n

-- 
Nathaniel J. Smith -- http://vorpus.org