Plotting in Python With Matplotlib: Simple Line Plots

With matplotlib, we can create a bunch of different plots in Python. The most basic plot is the line plot. A general recipe is given here. Try it out yourself here.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.plot(x,y)
plt.show()

Lets print out the list of angles on X axis and the sine of x on Y axis.

x=[0, 30, 45, 60, 90]

y=[0, 0.5,1/2**.5,1.732/2, 1]

Output plot:

Plot Title and Axis labelling

1. Plot title can be given by command

plt.title( ‘Title of your choosing’ )

2. X axis can be labelled by command

plt.xlabel(‘label of your choosing’)

3. Y axis is labelled by command

plt.ylabel(‘label of your choosing’)

Applying on our problem

plt.title(‘The Sine Curve’)
plt.xlabel(‘Angle in degrees’)
plt.ylabel(‘Sine of angle’)

Output:

Plot with Title and axes labels

Hopefully this will give you some confidence with plotting line graphs in Python.