John, That makes sense. Tks vm.
> I am still confused on what approach needs to be taken to
> get the data grids to be *interactive* from the python
> command prompt. It seems to me that such interactivity
> requires threading (ie, creating any new data grid gui
> window in its own thread). Is that correct, or is there
> some other way to do it?
OK, I appreciate that it's confusing. It's not an easy subject. I
suggest you give http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/interactive.html
and http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/faq.html#SHOW another reading
because your comments below indicate you haven't fully digested that
material. I take full responsibility for this, however, because I
wrote the docs!
I'll elaborate somewhat.
First a reminder which I think you already understand: matplotlib has
an interactive mode and a non-interactive mode. You want to use the
interactive mode, set 'interactive : True' in your rc file. In
interactive mode do not call show, ever. OK.
Your real problem is how to start the mainloop vis-a-vis threading.
The answer is (for gtk/gtkagg), use a custom python shell for pygtk.
The idea here is that the custom shell starts the mainloop for you.
When you import matplotlib with interactive on from one of these
shells, the mainloop is already started in a separate thread, and you
can issue plot commands and get immediate responses without losing
control of the prompt. Of course, you can launch other gtk windows
and widgets too.
There are a variety of python shells out there for pygtk, but I
strongly recommend you start with Fernando Perez's pyint-gtk.py.
If you notice in my last post to you, I wrote
> Here is an example using Fernando's ipython-gtk
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> hunter:~/python/examples/pygtk> python ~/tmp/ip/ipython-gtk.py
> Python 2.3.2 (#1, Oct 13 2003, 11:33:15)
> [GCC 3.3.1] on linux2
> Type "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
> (MatplotlibShell)
> 1 >>> from matplotlib.numerix import rand
> 2 >>> from array_to_grid import view_array
> 3 >>> view_array( rand(20,10))
> Out[3]: <ArrayView object (GtkWindow) at 0x4136db94>
I would have emphasized that but I wrongly assumed you knew you needed
a threaded GTK shell. I guess I've been doing this too long
pyint-gtk.py is just a temporary proof-of-concept to lay the
groundwork for ipython-gtk, which will be a full featured ipython
shell with gtk/matplotlib support. If you haven't checked out
ipython, you should, as it's *very nice* for interactive work.
Nonetheless, the current release of ipython doesn't support
gtk/matplotlib, and pyint-gtk.py is as good as the standard shell.
Plus we need testers, because the guts of this shell will become the
guts of ipython-gtk.
If you start it with
> python pyint-gtk.py -mplot
it will not only start the gtk mainloop but will import all of
matplotlib, so if the first command you type is
>>> plot([1,2,3)
a plot will pop up. And you can import and use the view_array code I
posted before as well.
I'll include the src for pyint-gtk.py here, as it is short
Hope this helps,
JDH
#!/usr/bin/env python
"""Multithreaded interactive interpreter with GTK and Matplotlib support.
Usage:
pyint-gtk.py -> starts shell with gtk thread running separately
pyint-gtk.py -mplot [filename] -> initializes matplotlib, optionally running
the named file. The shell starts after the file is executed.
Threading code inspired by:
Building GTK GUIs interactively « Python recipes « ActiveState Code, by Brian
McErlean and John Finlay.
Matplotlib support taken from interactive.py in the matplotlib distribution.
Also borrows liberally from code.py in the Python standard library."""
__author__ = "Fernando Perez <Fernando.Perez@...179...>"
import sys
import code
import threading
import pygtk
pygtk.require("2.0")
import gtk
try:
import readline
except ImportError:
has_readline = False
else:
has_readline = True
class MTConsole(code.InteractiveConsole):
"""Simple multi-threaded shell"""
def __init__(self,on_kill=None,*args,**kw):
code.InteractiveConsole.__init__(self,*args,**kw)
self.code_to_run = None
self.ready = threading.Condition()
self._kill = False
if on_kill is None:
on_kill =
# Check that all things to kill are callable:
for _ in on_kill:
if not callable(_):
raise TypeError,'on_kill must be a list of callables'
self.on_kill = on_kill
# Set up tab-completer
if has_readline:
import rlcompleter
try: # this form only works with python 2.3
self.completer = rlcompleter.Completer(self.locals)
except: # simpler for py2.2
self.completer = rlcompleter.Completer()
readline.set_completer(self.completer.complete)
# Use tab for completions
readline.parse_and_bind('tab: complete')
# This forces readline to automatically print the above list when tab
# completion is set to 'complete'.
readline.parse_and_bind('set show-all-if-ambiguous on')
# Bindings for incremental searches in the history. These searches
# use the string typed so far on the command line and search
# anything in the previous input history containing them.
readline.parse_and_bind('"\C-r": reverse-search-history')
readline.parse_and_bind('"\C-s": forward-search-history')
def runsource(self, source, filename="<input>", symbol="single"):
"""Compile and run some source in the interpreter.
Arguments are as for compile_command().
One several things can happen:
1) The input is incorrect; compile_command() raised an
exception (SyntaxError or OverflowError). A syntax traceback
will be printed by calling the showsyntaxerror() method.
2) The input is incomplete, and more input is required;
compile_command() returned None. Nothing happens.
3) The input is complete; compile_command() returned a code
object. The code is executed by calling self.runcode() (which
also handles run-time exceptions, except for SystemExit).
The return value is True in case 2, False in the other cases (unless
an exception is raised). The return value can be used to
decide whether to use sys.ps1 or sys.ps2 to prompt the next
line.
"""
try:
code = self.compile(source, filename, symbol)
except (OverflowError, SyntaxError, ValueError):
# Case 1
self.showsyntaxerror(filename)
return False
if code is None:
# Case 2
return True
# Case 3
# Store code in self, so the execution thread can handle it
self.ready.acquire()
self.code_to_run = code
self.ready.wait() # Wait until processed in timeout interval
self.ready.release()
return False
def runcode(self):
"""Execute a code object.
When an exception occurs, self.showtraceback() is called to display a
traceback."""
self.ready.acquire()
if self._kill:
print 'Closing threads...',
sys.stdout.flush()
for tokill in self.on_kill:
tokill()
print 'Done.'
if self.code_to_run is not None:
self.ready.notify()
code.InteractiveConsole.runcode(self,self.code_to_run)
self.code_to_run = None
self.ready.release()
return True
def kill (self):
"""Kill the thread, returning when it has been shut down."""
self.ready.acquire()
self._kill = True
self.ready.release()
class GTKInterpreter(threading.Thread):
"""Run a gtk mainloop() in a separate thread.
Python commands can be passed to the thread where they will be executed.
This is implemented by periodically checking for passed code using a
GTK timeout callback.
"""
TIMEOUT = 100 # Milisecond interval between timeouts.
def __init__(self,banner=None):
threading.Thread.__init__(self)
self.banner = banner
self.shell = MTConsole(on_kill=[gtk.mainquit])
def run(self):
self.pre_interact()
self.shell.interact(self.banner)
self.shell.kill()
def mainloop(self):
self.start()
gtk.timeout_add(self.TIMEOUT, self.shell.runcode)
try:
if gtk.gtk_version[0] >= 2:
gtk.threads_init()
except AttributeError:
pass
gtk.mainloop()
self.join()
def pre_interact(self):
"""This method should be overridden by subclasses.
It gets called right before interact(), but after the thread starts.
Typically used to push initialization code into the interpreter"""
pass
class MatplotLibInterpreter(GTKInterpreter):
"""Threaded interpreter with matplotlib support."""
def __init__(self,banner=None):
banner = """\nWelcome to matplotlib, a matlab-like python environment.
help(matlab) -> help on matlab compatible commands from matplotlib.
help(plotting) -> help on plotting commands.
"""
GTKInterpreter.__init__(self,banner)
def pre_interact(self):
"""Initialize matplotlib before user interaction begins"""
push = self.shell.push
# Code to execute in user's namespace
lines = ["import matplotlib",
"matplotlib.use('GTKAgg')",
"matplotlib.interactive(1)",
"import matplotlib.matlab as matlab",
"from matplotlib.matlab import *"]
map(push,lines)
# Execute file if given.
if len(sys.argv)>1:
import matplotlib
matplotlib.interactive(0) # turn off interaction
fname = sys.argv[1]
try:
inFile = file(fname, 'r')
except IOError:
print '*** ERROR *** Could not read file <%s>' % fname
else:
print '*** Executing file <%s>:' % fname
for line in inFile:
if line.lstrip().find('show()')==0: continue
print '>>', line,
push(line)
inFile.close()
matplotlib.interactive(1) # turn on interaction
if __name__ == '__main__':
# Quick sys.argv hack to extract the option and leave filenames in sys.argv.
# For real option handling, use optparse or getopt.
if len(sys.argv) > 1 and sys.argv[1]=='-mplot':
sys.argv = [sys.argv[0]]+sys.argv[2:]
MatplotLibInterpreter().mainloop()
else:
GTKInterpreter().mainloop()