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

A slight variation on some other aswers. The list order should have the same length as the number of legend items, and specifies the new order manually.

handles, labels = plt.gca().get_legend_handles_labels()
order = [0,2,1]
plt.legend([handles[idx] for idx in order],[labels[idx] for idx in order])