Plotting multiple lines, in different colors, with pandas dataframe

Question

I have a dataframe that looks like the following

   color  x   y
0    red  0   0
1    red  1   1
2    red  2   2
3    red  3   3
4    red  4   4
5    red  5   5
6    red  6   6
7    red  7   7
8    red  8   8
9    red  9   9
10  blue  0   0
11  blue  1   1
12  blue  2   4
13  blue  3   9
14  blue  4  16
15  blue  5  25
16  blue  6  36
17  blue  7  49
18  blue  8  64
19  blue  9  81

I ultimately want two lines, one blue, one red. The red line should essentially be y=x and the blue line should be y=x^2

When I do the following:

df.plot(x='x', y='y')

The output is this:

Is there a way to make pandas know that there are two sets? And group them accordingly. I'd like to be able to specify the column color as the set differentiator

Answer 1

Another simple way is to use the pandas.DataFrame.pivot function to format the data.

Use pandas.DataFrame.plot to plot. Providing the colors in the 'color' column exist in matplotlib: List of named colors, they can be passed to the color parameter.

# sample data
df = pd.DataFrame([['red', 0, 0], ['red', 1, 1], ['red', 2, 2], ['red', 3, 3], ['red', 4, 4], ['red', 5, 5], ['red', 6, 6], ['red', 7, 7], ['red', 8, 8], ['red', 9, 9], ['blue', 0, 0], ['blue', 1, 1], ['blue', 2, 4], ['blue', 3, 9], ['blue', 4, 16], ['blue', 5, 25], ['blue', 6, 36], ['blue', 7, 49], ['blue', 8, 64], ['blue', 9, 81]], columns=['color', 'x', 'y'])

# pivot the data into the correct shape
df = df.pivot(index='x', columns='color', values='y')

# display(df)
color  blue  red
x               
0         0    0
1         1    1
2         4    2
3         9    3
4        16    4
5        25    5
6        36    6
7        49    7
8        64    8
9        81    9

# plot the pivoted dataframe; if the column names aren't colors, remove color=df.columns
df.plot(color=df.columns, figsize=(5, 3))

Answer 2

You could use groupby to split the DataFrame into subgroups according to the color:

for key, grp in df.groupby(['color']):

---

import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

df = pd.read_table('data', sep='\s+')
fig, ax = plt.subplots()

for key, grp in df.groupby(['color']):
    ax = grp.plot(ax=ax, kind='line', x='x', y='y', c=key, label=key)

plt.legend(loc='best')
plt.show()

yields

Answer 3

If you have seaborn installed, an easier method that does not require you to perform pivot:

import seaborn as sns

sns.lineplot(data=df, x='x', y='y', hue='color')