warning about too many open figures

Question

In a script where I create many figures with fix, ax = plt.subplots(...), I get the warning RuntimeWarning: More than 20 figures have been opened. Figures c

Answer 1

Here's a bit more detail to expand on Hooked's answer. When I first read that answer, I missed the instruction to call clf() instead of creating a new figure. clf() on its own doesn't help if you then go and create another figure.

Here's a trivial example that causes the warning:

from matplotlib import pyplot as plt, patches
import os


def main():
    path = 'figures'
    for i in range(21):
        _fig, ax = plt.subplots()
        x = range(3*i)
        y = [n*n for n in x]
        ax.add_patch(patches.Rectangle(xy=(i, 1), width=i, height=10))
        plt.step(x, y, linewidth=2, where='mid')
        figname = 'fig_{}.png'.format(i)
        dest = os.path.join(path, figname)
        plt.savefig(dest)  # write image to file
        plt.clf()
    print('Done.')

main()

To avoid the warning, I have to pull the call to subplots() outside the loop. In order to keep seeing the rectangles, I need to switch clf() to cla(). That clears the axis without removing the axis itself.

from matplotlib import pyplot as plt, patches
import os


def main():
    path = 'figures'
    _fig, ax = plt.subplots()
    for i in range(21):
        x = range(3*i)
        y = [n*n for n in x]
        ax.add_patch(patches.Rectangle(xy=(i, 1), width=i, height=10))
        plt.step(x, y, linewidth=2, where='mid')
        figname = 'fig_{}.png'.format(i)
        dest = os.path.join(path, figname)
        plt.savefig(dest)  # write image to file
        plt.cla()
    print('Done.')

main()

If you're generating plots in batches, you might have to use both cla() and close(). I ran into a problem where a batch could have more than 20 plots without complaining, but it would complain after 20 batches. I fixed that by using cla() after each plot, and close() after each batch.

from matplotlib import pyplot as plt, patches
import os


def main():
    for i in range(21):
        print('Batch {}'.format(i))
        make_plots('figures')
    print('Done.')


def make_plots(path):
    fig, ax = plt.subplots()
    for i in range(21):
        x = range(3 * i)
        y = [n * n for n in x]
        ax.add_patch(patches.Rectangle(xy=(i, 1), width=i, height=10))
        plt.step(x, y, linewidth=2, where='mid')
        figname = 'fig_{}.png'.format(i)
        dest = os.path.join(path, figname)
        plt.savefig(dest)  # write image to file
        plt.cla()
    plt.close(fig)


main()

I measured the performance to see if it was worth reusing the figure within a batch, and this little sample program slowed from 41s to 49s (20% slower) when I just called close() after every plot.