How is order of items in matplotlib legend determined?

Question

I am having to reorder items in a legend, when I don\'t think I should have to. I try:

from pylab import *
clf()
ax=gca()
ht=ax.add_patch(Rectangle((1,1),1,1,         


        

Answer 1

Here's a quick snippet to sort the entries in a legend. It assumes that you've already added your plot elements with a label, for example, something like

ax.plot(..., label='label1')
ax.plot(..., label='label2')

and then the main bit:

handles, labels = ax.get_legend_handles_labels()
# sort both labels and handles by labels
labels, handles = zip(*sorted(zip(labels, handles), key=lambda t: t[0]))
ax.legend(handles, labels)

This is just a simple adaptation from the code listed at http://matplotlib.org/users/legend_guide.html