pylab matplotlib "show" waits until window closes

Question

I'd like to have the matplotlib "show" command return to the command line while displaying the plot. Most other plot packages, like R, do this. But pylab hangs until the plot window closes. For example:

import pylab
x = pylab.arange( 0, 10, 0.1)
y = pylab.sin(x)
pylab.plot(x,y, 'ro-')
pylab.show()   #  Python hangs here until the plot window is closed

I'd like to be able to view the plot while doing command line queries. I'm running Debian squeeze with python 2.6.6. My ~/.matplotlib/matplotlibrc contains

backend      : GTKAgg

Thanks!

Answer 1

Add pylab.ion() (interactive mode) before the pylab.show() call. That will make the UI run in a separate thread and the call to show will return immediately.