Multiple line in one plot

Q&A
, ,
#1

I found the chapter of multiple plot is confusing. Instructions do not explain the code in detail.
Could someone help to interpret the below code? especially the loop part, what does i*12 for? Thank you a lot!!!
Screen Link: https://app.dataquest.io/m/143/multiple-plots/9/adding-more-lines

My Code: 

fig=plt.figure(figsize=(10,6))
colors = ['red', 'blue', 'green', 'orange', 'black']

for i in range(5):
     start_index=i*12
     end_index=(i+1)*12
     subset=unrate[start_index:end_index]
     plt.plot(subset['MONTH'],subset['VALUE'],c=colors[i])
plt.show()
1 Like
#2

range(5) creates a list from 0 to 4 to iterate through. So on the first iteration i is equal to 0, so the starting index is 0*12 = 0 and the end index is (0+1) * 12 = 12.

So like the screen before that you get:

plt.plot(unrate[0:12]['MONTH'], unrate[0:12]['VALUE'], c='red')

Here c = colors[0], which is the first position in the list colors.

In the next iteration i = 1, so you get:

`plt.plot(unrate[12:24]['MONTH'], unrate[12:24]['VALUE'], c='blue')`

Here c = colors[1], which is the second position in the list colors.

and so forth.

1 Like
#3

You want to create multiple plots on the same graph (since you did not specify subplots(nrows=n, ncols=m). How do you want to do this. You want to plot 12 months interval. So you create a subset of the full data.
First you make the start and end indexes for your subsets using

for i in range(5):
     start_index=i*12
     end_index=(i+1)*12

When i = 0, the start_index and end_index are 0 and 12 respectively. When i=1 the start_index and end_index are 12 and 24 respectively.

The index of your data frame are numbers so you can get subsets of your data using: subset=unrate[start_index:end_index] and you plot each subset using plt.plot(subset['MONTH'],subset['VALUE'],c=colors[i]).

You are plotting Month column against the Value column on each subset. When you set color c=colors[i], you interate over this list colors = ['red', 'blue', 'green', 'orange', 'black'] and you pick colors for the plots according to its index on the colors list. Therefore the first plot with i = 0 will have a colors[0] of 'red'

3 Likes
#4

Thank you for your explanations! Now I have a clear picture.

Btw, if i want to create multiple plots, then i need to us subplots(nrows=n, ncols=m) or add_plot(). I get confused about these two and below two.

plt.plot()
axes.plot()

Thanks again!

3 Likes
#5

Hello, I am a bit confused here, please were do "MONTH’ come from. Our data has two features that is DATE and VALUE. How come the MONTH.

1 Like
#6

Apologies, I have figure this out. I mistakenly skipped a section. Thank You

2 Likes
#7

My solution:

plt.figure(figsize=(10,6))
col_list = ['red', 'blue', 'green', 'orange', 'black']
for i in range(1,6):
    plt.plot(unrate['DATE'].iloc[12*(i-1):12*i].dt.month, unrate['VALUE'].iloc[12*(i-1):12*i], c=col_list[i-1])
plt.show()
2 Likes
#8

Hello @eryk.mazus! Your solution is working but it may be a bit confusing since you do not define separate variables for start and stop indexes. You can comment your code to explain what it does and separate each column and colors (DATE, VALUE and cols on three lines).

1 Like