Expand shape compatibility of x and y in plot

Development
1

This is a variation on a previous post that has not received any responses.

Would it be possible to allow the plot function to accept an array y argument that is the same size as a vector x along one of its dimensions, not just the first? The following code works in MATLAB, for example:

x = linspace(0, 2*pi);    % Size: [1 x 100]
k = (0:2)';               % Size: [3 x 1]
y = sin(k*x);             % Size: [3 x 100]
plot(x, y)                % Second dimensions are the same
plot(x, y')               % Second dimension of x is the same as first dimension of y'

Matplotlib behaves differently:

x = np.linspace(0, 2 * np.pi)    # Shape: (50,)
k = np.arange(3).                # Shape: (3,)
y = np.sin(np.outer(k, x))       # Shape: (3, 50)
plt.plot(x, y)                   # Returns ValueError
plt.plot(x, y.T)                 # y.T has shape (50, 3), compatible with x
2

Feature requests can be submitted as issues on GitHub, but the requested functionality seems ambiguous to me: what does Matlab do if y is a square matrix (e.g. 100 x 100)?

3

Thanks, will do. Regarding your question, MATLAB defaults to plotting by column in the case that both dimensions of y are compatible with x.