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https://github.com/jktr/matplotlib-backend-notcurses

show matplotlib plots directly in your terminal
https://github.com/jktr/matplotlib-backend-notcurses

matplotlib notcurses terminal

Last synced: 14 days ago
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show matplotlib plots directly in your terminal

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# matplotlib-backend-notcurses

This python module allows you to show the plots generated
by python's [matplotlib](https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib)
in many modern and older terminals by using
[notcurses](https://github.com/dankamongmen/notcurses/).

To install it, you will need to do one of the following

- `$ pip install --user matplotlib-backend-notcurses`
- clone this repo into your python's `site-packages` directory
- clone this repo and add the parent directory to `sys.path` or `$PYTHONPATH`

Then, configure matplotlib to use the module by either setting the
environment variable `MPLBACKEND` to `module://matplotlib-backend-notcurses`
or by initializing matplotlib as follows.

```python
import matplotlib
matplotlib.use('module://matplotlib-backend-notcurses')
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
```

Please make sure that you have the programs `ncplayer`
and `notcurses-info`, both from `notcurses`, in your `PATH`.

If you've installed this module correctly, you can now use
the following sample code to draw a plot in your terminal.

```
$ export MPLBACKEND='module://matplotlib-backend-notcurses'
$ python -i
>>> import numpy as np; import pandas as pd
>>> n = 10000
>>> df = pd.DataFrame({'x': np.random.randn(n),
'y': np.random.randn(n)})
>>> df.plot.hexbin(x='x', y='y', gridsize=20)

```

If you set your matplotlib to interactive mode via
`matplotlib.pyplot.ion()` or by running python as
`python -i`, non-empty figures are drawn on construction
where possible. This allows you to use pandas' `plot()`
calls directly, without calling `plt.show()`, and still
enables you to manually construct and `plt.show()`.

If your matplotlib is in non-interactive mode,
you can construct your figures as usual, and then call
`plt.show()` to render them to your terminal. This
works from both a repl and when running scripts.

Figures are resized to the size of your terminal by default.
If you'd rather control the sizing of figures manually,
set the `MPLBACKEND_NOTCURSES_SIZING` environment variable to `manual`.

Internally, this backend is somewhat based on matplotlib's
IPython support: it's a hybrid of image and GUI backend types.
It works by using matplotlib's `Agg` backend to render the
plot, and then calls notcurses's `ncplayer` to place the rendered
image on your terminal. This means that plotting works as
expected, but the image drawn to your terminal isn't
interactive and animations aren't supported.

This is a port of my matplotlib-backend-kitty to notcurses
tooling, which provides support for more terminal graphics
protocols and reasonable auto-detection and fallbacks for these.