matplotlib show() prevents script from completing

Question

I have a script tool that creates a graph using matplotlib. I use plt.show() to display the graph, but the script does not continue until I close the window. Thanks to Dan Patterson‌ and /blogs/dan_patterson/2014/08/19/x-y-graphing-demo-using-pyplot-matplotliban-introduction?sr=search&searchId=99b9fb58-732a-45c0-955a-6ec7c2a037ec&searchIndex=0‌ I found plt.close(), but is there a way to allow the script to continue while keeping the plot window open? import matplotlib.pyplot as plt #Processing Step #Create Graph tName = "tableLocation.txt" outputFile = "outputFigure.png" x = [] y = [] with open(tName) as f: next(f) for line in f: parts = line.split(",") x.append(parts[2]) y.append(parts[3]) fig = plt.figure() plt.plot(x, y) plt.xlabel('Distance') plt.ylabel('Elevation') fig.suptitle("Graph Title") plt.show() fig.savefig(outputFile) #Next Processing Step‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

TimothyHales · Answer

Thanks for all of the suggestions. I decided not to show the chart through the matplotlib module. Since the features within that window were limited I saved it out as an image, and opened it in the default picture viewer. This allowed the process to complete without being held up by the chart window.

DanPatterson_Retired · Answer

hmmmm some better options... to test but here is a link... I will copy a few for posterity since they are on github

http://central.scipy.org/item/84/1/simple-interactive-matplotlib-plots by Thomas Haslawanter 2015

Luke_Pinner · Answer

Perhaps run the plotting as a separate script via a subprocess.