matplotlib - Use a loop to plot n charts Python

Question

I have a set of data that I load into python using a pandas dataframe. What I would like to do is create a loop that will print a plot for all the elements in their own frame, not all on one. My data is in an excel file structured in this fashion:

Index | DATE  | AMB CO 1 | AMB CO 2 |...|AMB CO_n | TOTAL
1     | 1/1/12|  14      | 33       |...|  236    | 1600
.     | ...   | ...      | ...      |...|  ...    | ...
.     | ...   | ...      | ...      |...|  ...    | ...
.     | ...   | ...      | ...      |...|  ...    | ...
n

This is what I have for code so far:

import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
ambdf = pd.read_excel('Ambulance.xlsx', 
                      sheetname='Sheet2', index_col=0, na_values=['NA'])
print type(ambdf)
print ambdf
print ambdf['EAS']

amb_plot = plt.plot(ambdf['EAS'], linewidth=2)
plt.title('EAS Ambulance Numbers')
plt.xlabel('Month')
plt.ylabel('Count of Deliveries')
print amb_plot

for i in ambdf:
    print plt.plot(ambdf[i], linewidth = 2)

I am thinking of doing something like this:

for i in ambdf:
    ambdf_plot = plt.plot(ambdf, linewidth = 2)

The above was not remotely what i wanted and it stems from my unfamiliarity with Pandas, MatplotLib etc, looking at some documentation though to me it looks like matplotlib is not even needed (question 2)

So A) How can I produce a plot of data for every column in my df and B) do I need to use matplotlib or should I just use pandas to do it all?

Thank you,

Answer 1

Ok, so the easiest method to create several plots is this:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
x=[[1,2,3,4],[1,2,3,4],[1,2,3,4],[1,2,3,4]]
y=[[1,2,3,4],[1,2,3,4],[1,2,3,4],[1,2,3,4]]
for i in range(len(x)):
    plt.figure()
    plt.plot(x[i],y[i])
    # Show/save figure as desired.
    plt.show()
# Can show all four figures at once by calling plt.show() here, outside the loop.
#plt.show()

Note that you need to create a figure every time or pyplot will plot in the first one created.

If you want to create several data series all you need to do is:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.figure()
x=[[1,2,3,4],[1,2,3,4],[1,2,3,4],[1,2,3,4]]
y=[[1,2,3,4],[2,3,4,5],[3,4,5,6],[7,8,9,10]]
plt.plot(x[0],y[0],'r',x[1],y[1],'g',x[2],y[2],'b',x[3],y[3],'k')

You could automate it by having a list of colours like ['r','g','b','k'] and then just calling both entries in this list and corresponding data to be plotted in a loop if you wanted to. If you just want to programmatically add data series to one plot something like this will do it (no new figure is created each time so everything is plotted in the same figure):

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
x=[[1,2,3,4],[1,2,3,4],[1,2,3,4],[1,2,3,4]]
y=[[1,2,3,4],[2,3,4,5],[3,4,5,6],[7,8,9,10]]
colours=['r','g','b','k']
plt.figure() # In this example, all the plots will be in one figure.    
for i in range(len(x)):
    plt.plot(x[i],y[i],colours[i])
plt.show()

Hope this helps. If anything matplotlib has a very good documentation page with plenty of examples.

17 Dec 2019: added plt.show() and plt.figure() calls to clarify this part of the story.