How to Plot a List in Python – Revealed!

Today, we will see how to plot a list in Python. We will use the matplotlib library. It is a popular Python library for data visualization.

Using this, we can easily plot a list in a few lines of code. So, without further ado, let’s get started.

Consider the following code to plot a list.

 

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import random

data = [random.randint(0, 20) for i in range(0, 10)]  #create a list of 10 random numbers

plt.plot(data, color='magenta', marker='o',mfc='pink' ) #plot the data
plt.xticks(range(0,len(data)+1, 1)) #set the tick frequency on x-axis

plt.ylabel('data') #set the label for y axis
plt.xlabel('index') #set the label for x-axis
plt.title("Plotting a list") #set the title of the graph
plt.show() #display the graph

 

Let’s understand this code step by step.

First, we import the pyplot module of the matplotlib library. We import it as plt, which is just a commonly used abbreviation.

Then, we create a list of 10 random numbers between 0 and 20.

Now that we have the data, we plot it using the plt.plot() method. Since we have one-dimensional data, items in the list get considered as y-values. By default, [0, 1, 2, 3, …, 9] list is taken as x-values.

Therefore, we can say that indices are on the x-axis and list items on the y-axis. We also pass additional arguments to style the plot.

We set its color to magenta. We use a circle-shaped marker to highlight a data point and fill it with pink.

After that, we use some methods to improve the readability of the graph. We add a title to the graph using the plt.title() method.

We also set x-axis and y-axis labels. Moreover, we change the step size on the x-axis to 1 using the plt.xticks() method.

Finally, we display the graph using the plt.show() method.

The output of the above code is shown below.