Graphing in Python 3.x

Question

In Python 2.6, I used matplotlib to make some simple graphs. However, it is incompatible with Python 3.1.

What are some alternative modules that can accomplish the same

Answer 1

I wrote a small example that runs in python 3 and uses the google chart api (as suggested by Duncan, I wrote the solution after seeing this post).

It is not ideal since it adds a dependency one a 3rd party that might break backward compatibility at any time, but the graphs are nice and there is absolutely no added dependency on the python code. Worth considering for not 'mission critical code'.

You can find/download the example here. Here is the graph that it generates from data in a .xml file:

# build the query with template parameters
query ="http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chxl=0:__X_LABELS__&chxp=__X_LABELS_POS__&chxr=0,__MIN_TIME__,__MAX_TIME__|1,__MIN_WEIGHT__,__MAX_WEIGHT__&chxs=0,676767,11.5,0,lt,676767|1,676767,11.5,0,lt,676767&chxt=x,y&chs=800x300&cht=lc&chco=3072F3&chds=__MIN_WEIGHT__,__MAX_WEIGHT__&chd=t:__COMMASEP_WEIGHT__&chdl=Weight&chdlp=b&chls=2,4,1&chma=5,5,5,25&chtt=Your+Weight+Timeline"

[...]

# relace template with data
query = query.replace('__X_LABELS__', strXLabels)
query = query.replace('__X_LABELS_POS__', strXLabelsPos)
query = query.replace('__MIN_TIME__', str(min(lst_dateEpoch)))
query = query.replace('__MAX_TIME__', str(max(lst_dateEpoch)))

[...]

# use 'urllib.request' to download the data & write to file
sock = urllib.request.urlopen(query)
image_bytes = sock.read()
sock.close()

fh = open('Weight_GoogleGraphApi.png', 'wb')
fh.write(image_bytes)
fh.close()