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

As an alternative to installing subversion to grab the source, Numpy's SF files page has the latest copy of 1.5 in a few different (Windows-friendly) formats:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/numpy/files/NumPy/1.5.0b1/

Answer 2

There are at least two graphing libraries using PyQt, namely PyQwt and PyQtGraph. I've been using PyQwt with Python 2.6 for a few weeks now and it is quite handy. The documentation isn't great, and most of the time I need to refer to either the Qwt docs or the examples - although the times I've had to look at the docs have been few and far between, it is VERY easy to use. I tried building it against python 3.1 just now though without success. I coulnd't find the tar package for 5.2.1 which is the only version compatible with python 3.0 and there isn't anything on MacPorts for that either.

There is also a fairly complete looking list of plotting libraries on at python.org http://wiki.python.org/moin/NumericAndScientific/Plotting

Answer 3

A stable version supporting Python 3 has since been released: official announcement.

Answer 4

rpy2 is providing access to the graphics capabilities of R, and rpy2 is becoming compatible with Python 3 (thanks to the help of Google for funding Greg over the summer).

Code against the current dev branch is in a patch queue.

edit: rpy2 2.2.0 is working with Python 3.2

Answer 5

Matplotlib binaries for python 3.x (windows) are avaliable. http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/

Answer 6

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()