2006/2/24, David Huard <david.huard@...287... >: What if I
>>> want it to be non-interactive ? I want to save graphics
>>> directly to a file from a script, without them being
>>> displayed. It's weird that in this case close() crashes the
>>> whole thing.
> Yes your wright the script have to work in non interactive
> mode. (I was just trying to give an explanation to Emmanuel
> problem). The following script should work (but it crashes
> like Emmanuel reported):
> #!/usr/bin/python import matplotlib import pylab #Turn off
> interactive mode matplotlib.interactive(False) #plot figure
> 1 pylab.figure() pylab.plot([1,2,3],[1,2,3])
> pylab.savefig("test_pylab1.png") pylab.close() #plot figure
> 2 pylab.figure() pylab.plot([1,2,3],[1,2,3])
> pylab.savefig("test_pylab2.png") pylab.close()
This is a bug and I fixed it in CVS (Steve take a look and see if you
agree with the show._mainloop approach) but basically you don't want
to use matplotlib this way.
If you do not want the figure to pop-up, that is you only want to
create a PNG and move on, just use the Agg backend rather than GTK*.
Eg
python myscript.py -dAgg
The problem you experienced arose because you closed all the figures
before you called show in non-interactive mode. For a GUI this makes
no sense, because you are telling the GUI to close all the windows
before it shows any of them.
I fixed the GTK backend to not try and quit gtk before starting it 
In summary, I recommend:
* in non-interactive mode with a GUI backend, always end your script
with show. This starts the GUI mainloop. Do not close all your
figures before you call show.
* if you don't want an image to pop up, use non-interactive mode,
and a non-GUI backend, and show is not required but it doesn't
hurt either.
JDH