[Matplotlib-users] Re: savefig and show()

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

>>>>> "Engelsma," == Engelsma, Dave <D.E...@La...> writes:

Hi David, please post questions directly to the matplotlib-users list.

    Engelsma> Hello -- Is it possible to save figures (I'm using the
    Engelsma> .eps feature) without having to show the plots/charts
    Engelsma> on the user's screen? I'd like to be able to save the
    Engelsma> figures to disk without showing them on the
    Engelsma> screen. Currently, it seems that the figures will not
    Engelsma> save to disk, unless I issue the show() command after
    Engelsma> the savefig. I'd like to eliminate having to call
    Engelsma> show().

From your email, it sounds like you are using the GTK backend and
saving figures with the ps backend.  If you just want to save the
figures as PS and not show them to the screen, use the ps backend
directly as described on
http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/backends.html

  > python myscript.py -dPS

or

    import matplotlib
    matplotlib.use('PS')
    from matplotlib.matlab import *

    t = arange(0.0, 3.0, 0.01)
    for i in range(1,10):
        figure(1)
        s = sin(2*pi*i*t)
        plot(t,s)
        savefig('plot%02d' % i)
        close(1)

In either case, there is no need to call 'show'.  If you want to make
multiple figures, you need to clear them between each save, as I did
here by closing the figure.

If you really want to use the GTK backend to make PS figures without
showing the figure, there are some things that will enable this, but I
don't see any reasons to go this route.  Let me know.

JDH