[FIXED] Matplotlib pyplot show() doesn't work once closed

Issue

I have a loop like this

#!/usr/bin/env python
import matplotlib.pyplot as p

for i in xrange(N):
    # Create my_image here

    # Display this image
    p.figure()
    p.imshow(my_image)
    p.show()
    p.close()

This works fine when i=0. For the program to continue, I need to close the new figure created by pyplot. For all other loop iterations (i>0), another new figure is not created, a plot is not presented and the program just moves on. Why does closing a figure making pyplot unable to open new one (like MATLAB)?

The behavior which I expect is:

1. Execution stops at p.show()
2. When I close the figure, execution continues
3. When p.show() is encountered again, the new image is displayed.
4. Repeat step 2 until no more plot to show

Solution

It might be from a bug in previous versions of matplotlib. I was having a similar problem when I issued sequential show() commands -- only the first would show (and stay); but, when I updated matplotlib to 1.0.1 the problem went away.

Answered By - Andy Barbour