matplotlib tries to make easy things easy and hard things possible. You can generate plots, histograms, power spectra, bar charts, errorcharts, scatterplots, etc, with just a few lines of code. For example, to make a histogram of data in x, you simply need to type

  >>> hist(x, 100)   # use 100 bins
  

The plotting functions in the pylab interface have a high degree of Matlab® compatibility.

Plotting commands

Function	Description
acorr	plot the autocorrelation function
annotate	annotate something in the figure
arrow	add an arrow to the axes
axes	Create a new axes
axhline	draw a horizontal line across axes
axvline	draw a vertical line across axes
axhspan	draw a horizontal bar across axes
axvspan	draw a vertical bar across axes
axis	Set or return the current axis limits
bar	make a bar chart
barh	a horizontal bar chart
broken_barh	a set of horizontal bars with gaps
box	set the axes frame on/off state
boxplot	make a box and whisker plot
cla	clear current axes
clabel	label a contour plot
clf	clear a figure window
clim	adjust the color limits of the current image
close	close a figure window
colorbar	add a colorbar to the current figure
cohere	make a plot of coherence
contour	make a contour plot
contourf	make a filled contour plot
csd	make a plot of cross spectral density
delaxes	delete an axes from the current figure
draw	Force a redraw of the current figure
errorbar	make an errorbar graph
figlegend	make legend on the figure rather than the axes
figimage	make a figure image
figtext	add text in figure coords
figure	create or change active figure
fill	make filled polygons
findobj	recursively find all objects matching some criteria
gca	return the current axes
gcf	return the current figure
gci	get the current image, or None
getp	get a handle graphics property
grid	set whether gridding is on
hist	make a histogram
hold	set the axes hold state
ioff	turn interaction mode off
ion	turn interaction mode on
isinteractive	return True if interaction mode is on
imread	load image file into array
imshow	plot image data
ishold	return the hold state of the current axes
legend	make an axes legend
loglog	a log log plot
matshow	display a matrix in a new figure preserving aspect
pcolor	make a pseudocolor plot
pcolormesh	make a pseudocolor plot using a quadrilateral mesh
pie	make a pie chart
plot	make a line plot
plot_date	plot dates
plotfile	plot column data from an ASCII tab/space/comma delimited file
pie	pie charts
polar	make a polar plot on a PolarAxes
psd	make a plot of power spectral density
quiver	make a direction field (arrows) plot
rc	control the default params
rgrids	customize the radial grids and labels for polar
savefig	save the current figure
scatter	make a scatter plot
setp	set a handle graphics property
semilogx	log x axis
semilogy	log y axis
show	show the figures
specgram	a spectrogram plot
spy	plot sparsity pattern using markers or image
stem	make a stem plot
subplot	make a subplot (numrows, numcols, axesnum)
subplots_adjust	change the params controlling the subplot positions of current figure
subplot_tool	launch the subplot configuration tool
suptitle	add a figure title
table	add a table to the plot
text	add some text at location x,y to the current axes
thetagrids	customize the radial theta grids and labels for polar
title	add a title to the current axes
xcorr	plot the autocorrelation function of x and y
xlim	set/get the xlimits
ylim	set/get the ylimits
xticks	set/get the xticks
yticks	set/get the yticks
xlabel	add an xlabel to the current axes
ylabel	add a ylabel to the current axes
autumn	set the default colormap to autumn
bone	set the default colormap to bone
cool	set the default colormap to cool
copper	set the default colormap to copper
flag	set the default colormap to flag
gray	set the default colormap to gray
hot	set the default colormap to hot
hsv	set the default colormap to hsv
jet	set the default colormap to jet
pink	set the default colormap to pink
prism	set the default colormap to prism
spring	set the default colormap to spring
summer	set the default colormap to summer
winter	set the default colormap to winter
spectral	set the default colormap to spectral