assign results to dummy variable _

Question

Can someone please point out what the point of assigning the result(s) of a plot to a dummy variable _ is like so:

_ = plt.plot(x_vers, y_vers, marker = '.', linestyle = 'none')

Usually I see code like this:

plt.plot(x_vers, y_vers, marker = '.', linestyle = 'none')

Is it better practice to use the dummy _ even if it is never used? if so, why?

Thanks @U9-Forward - I think you are right but we have an answer so cannot delete. — cs0815, Aug 18 '18 at 06:05

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 18 '18 at 05:55

3

plt.plot returns an matplotlib.AxesSubplot object or an array of them, depending on what you're plotting. If you're running that command in an interactive environment, and don't want its output dumped to output when run, you can either assign to a dummy variable or suppress with a semi-colon, but the latter isn't really pythonic.

If you're running a script, it makes no difference, because nothing is printed to stdout unless explicitly printed.

answered Aug 18 '18 at 05:55

cs95

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Thanks that makes sense. I tend to use IDEs like PyCharm rather than Jupyter ... – cs0815 Aug 18 '18 at 06:03

assign results to dummy variable _

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