Why is my boxplot not showing up in python?

Question

I am new to Python and am working on displaying a boxplot for a dataset with 2 numeric columns and 1 character column with values (A,B,C,D). I want to show a boxplot of the values for either of the 2 numeric columns by the character column. I have followed some tutorials online but the plots are not showing up.

I have tried adding .show() or .plot() on the end of some of my code, but receive warnings that those attributes don't exist. I have tried using matplotlib and it seems to work better when I use that module, but I want to learn how to do this when using pandas.

import pandas as pd
datafile="C:\\Users\\…\\TestFile.xlsx"
data=pd.read_excel(datafile)
data.boxplot('Col1', by='Col2')

I want a boxplot to show up automatically when I run this code or be able to run one more line to have it pop up, but everything I've tried has failed. What step(s) am I missing?

`plt.show()` shows the plot (`plt` is `import matplotlib.pyplot as plt`) — ImportanceOfBeingErnest, Aug 15 '19 at 19:37

ivallesp · Accepted Answer · 2020-10-13T12:05:23.967

9

You should use plt.show(). Look at the following code

import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
datafile="C:\\Users\\…\\TestFile.xlsx"
data=pd.read_excel(datafile)
data.boxplot('Col1', by='Col2')
plt.show()

edited Oct 13 '20 at 12:05

answered Aug 15 '19 at 19:41

ivallesp

2,018
1
14
21

1

Typo in the import statement, correction --> import matplotlib.pyplot as plt – Synster Oct 12 '20 at 11:03
this solution is not working – Tanmay Bairagi Sep 19 '22 at 10:07

Karan Arya · Answer 2 · 2019-08-16T08:50:56.663

1

Seaborn library helps you plot all sorts of plots between two columns of a dataframe pretty easily. Place any categorical column on the x-axis and a numerical column on the y-axis. There is also a fancy version of boxplot in Seaborn known as boxenplot.

import seaborn as sns
sns.boxplot(x = data['Col1'], y = data['Col2'])


import seaborn as sns
sns.boxenplot(x = data['Col1'], y = data['Col2'])

edited Aug 16 '19 at 08:50

answered Aug 15 '19 at 19:45

Karan Arya

104
8

While this code may/may no solve the question, [including an explanation](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/114762/explaining-entirely-code-based-answers) of how and why this solves the problem would really help to improve the quality of your post, and probably result in more up-votes. Remember that you are answering the question for readers in the future, not just the person asking now. Please edit your answer to add explanations. – Drew Aug 16 '19 at 06:25

Why is my boxplot not showing up in python?

2 Answers2