Figure and axes methods in matplotlib

Question

Say I have the following setup:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt import numpy as np  x = np.arange(5) y = np.exp(x) fig1 = plt.figure() ax1 = fig1.add_subplot(111) ax1.plot(x, y) 

I would like to add a title to the plot (or to the subplot).

I tried:

> fig1.title('foo') AttributeError: 'Figure' object has no attribute 'title' 

and

> ax1.title('foo')  TypeError: 'Text' object is not callable 

How can I use the object-oriented programming interface to matplotlib to set these attributes?

More generally, where can I find the hierarchy of classes in matplotlib and their corresponding methods?

Answer 1

use ax1.set_title('foo') instead

ax1.title returns a matplotlib.text.Textobject:

In [289]: ax1.set_title('foo') Out[289]: <matplotlib.text.Text at 0x939cdb0>  In [290]: print ax1.title Text(0.5,1,'foo') 

You can also add a centered title to the figure when there are multiple AxesSubplot:

In [152]: fig, ax=plt.subplots(1, 2)      ...: fig.suptitle('title of subplots') Out[152]: <matplotlib.text.Text at 0x94cf650>