How to dynamically update a plot in a loop in Ipython notebook (within one cell)

Question

Environment: Python 2.7, matplotlib 1.3, IPython notebook 1.1, linux, chrome. The code is in one single input cell, using --pylab=inline

I want to use I

Answer 1

A couple of improvement's on HYRY's answer:

• call display before clear_output so that you end up with one plot, rather than two, when the cell is interrupted.
• catch the KeyboardInterrupt, so that the cell output isn't littered with the traceback.

import matplotlib.pylab as plt
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
import time
from IPython import display
%matplotlib inline

i = pd.date_range('2013-1-1',periods=100,freq='s')

while True:
    try:
        plt.plot(pd.Series(data=np.random.randn(100), index=i))
        display.display(plt.gcf())
        display.clear_output(wait=True)
        time.sleep(1)
    except KeyboardInterrupt:
        break