Easy Install¶

1. Delete the caches from your .matplotlib configuration directory.

2. Run:

   easy_install -m matplotlib

3. Delete any .egg files or directories from your installation directory.

Windows installer¶

1. Delete the caches from your .matplotlib configuration directory.
2. Use Start ‣ Control Panel to start the Add and Remove Software utility.

Source install¶

Unfortunately:

python setup.py clean

does not properly clean the build directory, and does nothing to the install directory. To cleanly rebuild:

1. Delete the caches from your .matplotlib configuration directory.
2. Delete the build directory in the source tree.
3. Delete any matplotlib directories or eggs from your installation directory.

Source install from git¶

Clone the main source using one of:

git clone git@github.com:matplotlib/matplotlib.git

or:

git clone git://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib.git

and build and install as usual with:

> cd matplotlib
> python setup.py install

sudo apt-get build-dep python-matplotlib

su -c "yum-builddep python-matplotlib"

If you want to be able to follow the development branch as it changes just replace the last step with (make sure you have setuptools installed):

> python setup.py develop

This creates links in the right places and installs the command line script to the appropriate places.

Then, if you want to update your matplotlib at any time, just do:

> git pull

When you run git pull, if the output shows that only Python files have been updated, you are all set. If C files have changed, you need to run the python setupegg.py develop command again to compile them.

There is more information on using git in the developer docs.

Which python for OS X?¶

Apple ships with its own python, and many users have had trouble with it. There are several alternative versions of python that can be used. If it is feasible, we recommend that you use the enthought python distribution EPD for OS X (which comes with matplotlib and much more). Also available is MacPython or the official OS X version from python.org.

Installing OSX binaries¶

If you want to install matplotlib from one of the binary installers we build, you have two choices: a mpkg installer, which is a typical Installer.app, or a binary OSX egg, which you can install via setuptools’ easy_install.

The mkpg installer will have a “zip” extension, and will have a name like matplotlib-1.2.0-py2.7-macosx10.5_mpkg.zip. The name of the installer depends on which versions of python, matplotlib, and OSX it was built for. You need to unzip this file using either the “unzip” command, or simply double clicking on the it. Then when you double-click on the resulting mpkd, which will have a name like matplotlib-1.2.0-py2.7-macosx10.5.mpkg, it will run the Installer.app, prompt you for a password if you need system-wide installation privileges, and install to a directory like /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/ (exact path depends on your python version). This directory may not be in your python ‘path’ variable, so you should test your installation with:

> python -c 'import matplotlib; print matplotlib.__version__, matplotlib.__file__'

If you get an error like:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
ImportError: No module named matplotlib

then you will need to set your PYTHONPATH, eg:

export PYTHONPATH=/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages:$PYTHONPATH

See also ref:environment-variables.

Building and installing from source on OSX with EPD¶

If you have the EPD installed (Which python for OS X?), it might turn out to be rather tricky to install a new version of matplotlib from source on the Mac OS 10.5 . Here’s a procedure that seems to work, at least sometimes:

0. Remove the ~/.matplotlib folder (“rm -rf ~/.matplotlib”).

1. Edit the file (make a backup before you start, just in case): /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/Current/lib/python2.5/config/Makefile, removing all occurrences of the string -arch ppc, changing the line MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.3 to MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.5 and changing the occurrences of MacOSX10.4u.sdk into MacOSX10.5.sdk

2. In /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/Current/lib/pythonX.Y/site-packages/easy-install.pth, (where X.Y is the version of Python you are building against) Comment out the line containing the name of the directory in which the previous version of MPL was installed (Looks something like ./matplotlib-0.98.5.2n2-py2.5-macosx-10.3-fat.egg).

3. Save the following as a shell script, for example ./install-matplotlib-epd-osx.sh:

NAME=matplotlib
VERSION=v1.1.x
PREFIX=$HOME
#branch="release"
branch="master"
git clone git://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib.git
cd matplotlib
if [ $branch = "release" ]
    then
    echo getting the maintenance branch
    git checkout -b $VERSION origin/$VERSION
fi
export CFLAGS="-Os -arch i386"
export LDFLAGS="-Os -arch i386"
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="/usr/x11/lib/pkgconfig"
export ARCHFLAGS="-arch i386"
python setup.py build
# use --prefix if you don't want it installed in the default location:
python setup.py install #--prefix=$PREFIX
cd ..

Run this script (for example sh ./install-matplotlib-epd-osx.sh) in the directory in which you want the source code to be placed, or simply type the commands in the terminal command line. This script sets some local variable (CFLAGS, LDFLAGS, PKG_CONFIG_PATH, ARCHFLAGS), removes previous installations, checks out the source from github, builds and installs it. The backend should to be set to MacOSX.

Binary installers for Windows¶

If you have already installed python, you can use one of the matplotlib binary installers for windows – you can get these from the download site. Choose the files that match your version of python (eg py2.7 if you installed Python 2.7) which have the exe extension. If you haven’t already installed python, you can get the official version from the python web site.

There are also two packaged distributions of python that come preloaded with matplotlib and many other tools like ipython, numpy, scipy, vtk and user interface toolkits. These packages are quite large because they come with so much, but you get everything with a single click installer.

• The Enthought Python Distribution EPD
• python (x, y)