Cannot plot inline with ipython notebook

Question

I'm playing with ipython notebook and I got a problem.

This code %matplotlib inlinehelped me to plot inline with the code below.

%matplotlib inline 
ax1= plt.subplot(2,1,1)
ax1.plot(df.Close,label="sp500")
ax1.plot(ma,label='50MA')
plt.legend()

ax2=plt.subplot(2,1,2, sharex = ax1)
ax2.plot(df['H-L'],label='H-L')
plt.legend()

However, I cannot plot inline with the code below.

%matplotlib inline

def single_stock(stock_name):
    df = pd.read_csv('stocks_date_modified.csv',index_col='time',parse_dates=True)
    df = df[df.type == stock_name.lower()]
    _500MA= pd.rolling_mean(df['value'],500)
    ax1= plt.subplot(2,1,1)
    df['close'].plot(label='Price')
    plt.legend()

    ax2= plt.subplot(2,1,2, sharex = ax1)
    _500MA.plot(label='500MA')
    plt.legend()

    plt.show()

single_stock('bac')

I got an error message saying

UsageError: unrecognized arguments: #this code is to plot inline the notebook

Without the %matplotlib inlineI don't have problem showing the plots but in the popup window.

Could someone help me to solve this?

is there any difference if you run your notebook with ipython notebook --matplotlib=inline? — Anzel
Thanks a lot! Oh so ipython notebook users type --matplotlib=inline every time when they want the plots to be inline? — user3368526
Can you post the full traceback? You should only need to run the inline magic once per notebook. — tacaswell

interro-gator interro-gator · Accepted Answer · 2015-02-24T01:01:23

If anybody else encounters this error, it seems that you cannot have inline comments on lines that call IPython Magics:

In [9]: %matplotlib inline # allows matplotlib to be inline

UsageError: unrecognized arguments: # allows matplotlib to be inline

Without the comment, it works just fine:

In [9]: %matplotlib inline

But yes, loading matplotlib inline at startup with ipython notebook --matplotlib=inline is probably a wise move anyway.

Cannot plot inline with ipython notebook

2 Answers