Show mean in the box plot in python?

Question

I am new to Matplotlib, and as I am learning how to draw box plot in python, I was wondering if there is a way to show mean in the box plots? Below is my code..

from pylab import * import matplotlib.pyplot as plt data1=np.random.rand(100,1) data2=np.random.rand(100,1) data_to_plot=[data1,data2] #Create a figure instance fig = plt.figure(1, figsize=(9, 6)) # Create an axes instance axes = fig.add_subplot(111)     # Create the boxplot bp = axes.boxplot(data_to_plot,**showmeans=True**) 

Even though I have showmean flag on, it gives me the following error.

TypeError: boxplot() got an unexpected keyword argument 'showmeans' 

Answer 1

This is a minimal example and produces the desired result:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt import numpy as np  data_to_plot = np.random.rand(100,5)  fig = plt.figure(1, figsize=(9, 6)) ax = fig.add_subplot(111)     bp = ax.boxplot(data_to_plot, showmeans=True)  plt.show() 

EDIT:

If you want to achieve the same with matplotlib version 1.3.1 you'll have to plot the means manually. This is an example of how to do it:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt import numpy as np  data_to_plot = np.random.rand(100,5) positions = np.arange(5) + 1  fig, ax = plt.subplots(1,2, figsize=(9,4))  # matplotlib > 1.4 bp = ax[0].boxplot(data_to_plot, positions=positions, showmeans=True) ax[0].set_title("Using showmeans")  #matpltolib < 1.4 bp = ax[1].boxplot(data_to_plot, positions=positions) means = [np.mean(data) for data in data_to_plot.T] ax[1].plot(positions, means, 'rs') ax[1].set_title("Plotting means manually")  plt.show() 

Result: