Question

I have this simple code that plots exactly the same thing in two different figures (fig1 and fig2). However, I have to write the line ax?.plot(x, y) twice, once for ax1 and once for ax2. How can I have only one plot expression (having multiple redondant ones could be a source of troubles for my more complex code). Something like ax1,ax2.plot(x, y) … ?

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

#Prepares the data
x = np.arange(5)
y = np.exp(x)

#plot fig1
fig1 = plt.figure()
ax1 = fig1.add_subplot(111)

#plot fig2
fig2 = plt.figure()
ax2 = fig2.add_subplot(111)

#adds the same fig2 plot on fig1
ax1.plot(x, y)
ax2.plot(x, y)

plt.show()

Answer 1

You can either add each axes to a list, like this:

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

axes_lst = []    
#Prepares the data
x = np.arange(5)
y = np.exp(x)


#plot fig1
fig1 = plt.figure()
ax1 = fig1.add_subplot(111)
axes_lst.append(ax1)

#plot fig2
fig2 = plt.figure()
ax2 = fig2.add_subplot(111)
axes_lst.append(ax2)

for ax in axes_lst:
    ax.plot(x, y)

plt.show()

or you can use this unsupported feature to pull all of the figures in pyplot. Taken from https://stackoverflow.com/a/3783303/1269969

figures=[manager.canvas.figure
         for manager in matplotlib._pylab_helpers.Gcf.get_all_fig_managers()]
for figure in figures:
    figure.gca().plot(x,y)