Detach matplotlib window from sub-process

Question

I've got a script which creates a graph, but the script keeps running in the background until the window is closed. I'd like it to quit as soon as the window is created, so that Ctrl-C in the shell won't kill the window, and so that the user can leave the window open and continue working in the shell without bg-ing it manually. I've seen some solutions with daemons, but I'd like to avoid splitting this into two scripts. Is multiprocessing the easiest solution, or is there something shorter?

The relevant show() command is the last thing that is executed by the script, so I don't need to keep a reference to the window in any way.

Edit: I don't want to save the figure as a file, I want to be able to use the interactive window. Essentially the same as running mian ... & in bash

Answer 1

Just discovered this argument in plt.show(). setting block=False will pop up the figure window, continue following code, and keep you in the interpreter when the script has finished (if you are running in interactive mode -i).

plt.show(block=False)

Answer 2

This works for Unix:

import pylab
import numpy as np
import multiprocessing as mp
import os

def display():
    os.setsid()
    pylab.show()

mu, sigma = 2, 0.5
v = np.random.normal(mu,sigma,10000)
(n, bins) = np.histogram(v, bins=50, normed=True)
pylab.plot(bins[:-1], n)
p=mp.Process(target=display)
p.start()

When you run this script (from a terminal) the pylab plot is displayed. Pressing Ctrl-C kills the main script, but the plot remains.