Difference between plt.close() and plt.clf()

Question

In Python, what is the difference between plt.clf() and plt.close()?

Will they function the same way?

Answer 1

There is a slight difference between the two functions.

plt.close() - It altogether plots the graph in seperate windows,releasing memory,retaining each window for view.

plt.clf() - We can say,it displays the graph in the same window one after other

For illustration, I have plotted two graphs with paramters year and views on X axis and Y axis each. Initially I have used closed function.it displayed the graphs in two seperate windows…

Afterwords, when I run the program with clf() it clears the graph and displays next one in same window i.e figure 1. Here is the code snippet -

    import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
    year = [2001,2002,2003,2004]
    Views= [12000,14000,16000,18000]
    Views2 = [15000,1800,24000,84000]
    plt.plot(year,Views)
    plt.show()
    plt.clf()
    plt.plot(year,Views2)
    plt.show()
    plt.clf()

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