How to get a matplotlib Axes instance to plot to?

Question

I need to make a candlestick chart (something like this) using some stock data. For this I want to use the function matplotlib.finance.candlestick(). To this function I need

Answer 1

Use the gca ("get current axes") helper function:

ax = plt.gca()

Example:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.finance
quotes = [(1, 5, 6, 7, 4), (2, 6, 9, 9, 6), (3, 9, 8, 10, 8), (4, 8, 8, 9, 8), (5, 8, 11, 13, 7)]
ax = plt.gca()
h = matplotlib.finance.candlestick(ax, quotes)
plt.show()

Answer 2

You can either

fig, ax = plt.subplots()  #create figure and axes
candlestick(ax, quotes, ...)

or

candlestick(plt.gca(), quotes) #get the axis when calling the function

The first gives you more flexibility. The second is much easier if candlestick is the only thing you want to plot