Plotting strings as axis in matplotlib

Question

I have a pandas DataFrame similar to :

Species  Count1 Count2 
AGREP      2       10
GYLEP      4       6
POAPRA     2       8
EUPESU     1       11

and I want to make a line plot of species vs. Count 1 with the x-axis being the species and the y-axis as Count 1.

I try to use the code:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.plot(df.Species,df.Count1)

but this returns the error:

ValueError: could not convert string to float

I want to eventually only chose certain species to plot as well against both counts. For example, I want to plot AGREP and EUPESUS on the x axis against both Count 1 and Count 2 as the y axis. Again though, it won't plot the string as the axis name.

Jianxun Li · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-20 18:21:08Z

1

You can set those strings as index and just use the pandas.DataFrame .plot method.

import pandas as pd

# your data
# ===================================

df


  Species  Count1  Count2
0   AGREP       2      10
1   GYLEP       4       6
2  POAPRA       2       8
3  EUPESU       1      11


# plot
# ===================================
df.set_index('Species').plot()

enter image description here

df.set_index('Species').loc[['AGREP', 'EUPESU']].plot()

enter image description here

answered Jul 20, 2015 at 18:21

Jianxun Li

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Comments

Mario · Accepted Answer · 2022-07-12 01:45:26Z

0

You can a set a specific column in your plot like this

import pandas as pd  
  
# assign data of lists.  
data = {'Species': ['AGREP', 'GYLEP', 'POAPRA', 'EUPESU'],
 'Count1': [2, 4, 2, 1],
 'Count2': [10, 6, 8, 11]}  
  
# Create DataFrame  
df = pd.DataFrame(data)  
df

# Output
  Species  Count1  Count2
0   AGREP       2      10
1   GYLEP       4       6
2  POAPRA       2       8
3  EUPESU       1      11

# Plot Count1 column while index is Species
df.set_index('Species')['Count1'].plot()

Plot Count1 column while index is Species:

edited Jul 12, 2022 at 1:45

Mario

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answered Jun 28, 2021 at 10:16

Ahnaf Tahmid Chowdhury

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