Secondary axis with twinx(): how to add to legend?

Question

I have a plot with two y-axes, using twinx(). I also give labels to the lines, and want to show them with legend(), but I only succeed to get the l

Answer 1

You can easily get what you want by adding the line in ax:

ax.plot([], [], '-r', label = 'temp')

or

ax.plot(np.nan, '-r', label = 'temp')

This would plot nothing but add a label to legend of ax.

I think this is a much easier way. It's not necessary to track lines automatically when you have only a few lines in the second axes, as fixing by hand like above would be quite easy. Anyway, it depends on what you need.

The whole code is as below:

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib import rc
rc('mathtext', default='regular')

time = np.arange(22.)
temp = 20*np.random.rand(22)
Swdown = 10*np.random.randn(22)+40
Rn = 40*np.random.rand(22)

fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111)
ax2 = ax.twinx()

#---------- look at below -----------

ax.plot(time, Swdown, '-', label = 'Swdown')
ax.plot(time, Rn, '-', label = 'Rn')

ax2.plot(time, temp, '-r')  # The true line in ax2
ax.plot(np.nan, '-r', label = 'temp')  # Make an agent in ax

ax.legend(loc=0)

#---------------done-----------------

ax.grid()
ax.set_xlabel("Time (h)")
ax.set_ylabel(r"Radiation ($MJ\,m^{-2}\,d^{-1}$)")
ax2.set_ylabel(r"Temperature ($^\circ$C)")
ax2.set_ylim(0, 35)
ax.set_ylim(-20,100)
plt.show()

The plot is as below:

---

Update: add a better version:

ax.plot(np.nan, '-r', label = 'temp')

This will do nothing while plot(0, 0) may change the axis range.

---

One extra example for scatter

ax.scatter([], [], s=100, label = 'temp')  # Make an agent in ax
ax2.scatter(time, temp, s=10)  # The true scatter in ax2

ax.legend(loc=1, framealpha=1)