Invalid syntax error returned for %matplotlib

Question

I'm experiencing some trouble importing the below libraries displayed within the below markdown, which is required for a Python sentiment analysis via Twitter:

# General:
import tweepy           # To consume Twitter's API
import pandas as pd     # To handle data
import numpy as np      # For number computing

# For plotting and visualization:
from IPython.display import display
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import seaborn as sns
%matplotlib

Although somewhat new to Python3/pip, as a Rubyist/elephpant, I'm certainly no stranger to homebrew- after commenting-out %matplotlib the file apparently imports all libraries listed except%matplotlib, which appears to be the Jupyter invocation- so how do I correctly load the import for %matplotlib in standard Python (3.6.2) in order to avoid the below error? Is there an alternative approach?

 File "toolbox.py", line 10
    %matplotlib
    ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

Thank you!

%matplotlib is an IPython magic. That's for interactive use. — wim
– wim, Commented Sep 13, 2017 at 20:07
Thanks @wim- are you suggesting to just comment out %matplotlib or that and import matplotlib.pyplot as plt altogether? — alexanderjsingleton
– alexanderjsingleton, Commented Sep 13, 2017 at 20:15

MSeifert · Accepted Answer · 2017-09-13 20:23:18Z

4

As the documentation explains:

Starting with IPython 5.0 and matplotlib 2.0 you can avoid the use of IPython’s specific magic and use matplotlib.pyplot.ion()/matplotlib.pyplot.ioff() which have the advantages of working outside of IPython as well.

(emphasis mine)

So in your case you could just use:

plt.ion()

instead of the bare %matplotlib.

answered Sep 13, 2017 at 20:23

MSeifert

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1 Comment

alexanderjsingleton Over a year ago

Perfect! Thanks for pointing me in the right direction- I hadn't seen those dox yet- was too focused on matplotlib dox. Thanks again.

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