matplotlib: Group boxplots

Here is my version. It stores data based on categories.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

data_a = [[1,2,5], [5,7,2,2,5], [7,2,5]]
data_b = [[6,4,2], [1,2,5,3,2], [2,3,5,1]]

ticks = ['A', 'B', 'C']

def set_box_color(bp, color):
    plt.setp(bp['boxes'], color=color)
    plt.setp(bp['whiskers'], color=color)
    plt.setp(bp['caps'], color=color)
    plt.setp(bp['medians'], color=color)

plt.figure()

bpl = plt.boxplot(data_a, positions=np.array(xrange(len(data_a)))*2.0-0.4, sym='', widths=0.6)
bpr = plt.boxplot(data_b, positions=np.array(xrange(len(data_b)))*2.0+0.4, sym='', widths=0.6)
set_box_color(bpl, '#D7191C') # colors are from http://colorbrewer2.org/
set_box_color(bpr, '#2C7BB6')

# draw temporary red and blue lines and use them to create a legend
plt.plot([], c='#D7191C', label='Apples')
plt.plot([], c='#2C7BB6', label='Oranges')
plt.legend()

plt.xticks(xrange(0, len(ticks) * 2, 2), ticks)
plt.xlim(-2, len(ticks)*2)
plt.ylim(0, 8)
plt.tight_layout()
plt.savefig('boxcompare.png')

I am short of reputation so I cannot post an image to here. You can run it and see the result. Basically it's very similar to what Molly did.

Note that, depending on the version of python you are using, you may need to replace xrange with range

Mock data:

df = pd.DataFrame({'Group':['A','A','A','B','C','B','B','C','A','C'],\
                  'Apple':np.random.rand(10),'Orange':np.random.rand(10)})
df = df[['Group','Apple','Orange']]

        Group    Apple     Orange
    0      A  0.465636  0.537723
    1      A  0.560537  0.727238
    2      A  0.268154  0.648927
    3      B  0.722644  0.115550
    4      C  0.586346  0.042896
    5      B  0.562881  0.369686
    6      B  0.395236  0.672477
    7      C  0.577949  0.358801
    8      A  0.764069  0.642724
    9      C  0.731076  0.302369

You can use the Seaborn library for these plots. First melt the dataframe to format data and then create the boxplot of your choice.

import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import seaborn as sns
dd=pd.melt(df,id_vars=['Group'],value_vars=['Apple','Orange'],var_name='fruits')
sns.boxplot(x='Group',y='value',data=dd,hue='fruits')

How about using colors to differentiate between "apples" and "oranges" and spacing to separate "A", "B" and "C"?

Something like this:

from pylab import plot, show, savefig, xlim, figure, \
                hold, ylim, legend, boxplot, setp, axes

# function for setting the colors of the box plots pairs
def setBoxColors(bp):
    setp(bp['boxes'][0], color='blue')
    setp(bp['caps'][0], color='blue')
    setp(bp['caps'][1], color='blue')
    setp(bp['whiskers'][0], color='blue')
    setp(bp['whiskers'][1], color='blue')
    setp(bp['fliers'][0], color='blue')
    setp(bp['fliers'][1], color='blue')
    setp(bp['medians'][0], color='blue')

    setp(bp['boxes'][1], color='red')
    setp(bp['caps'][2], color='red')
    setp(bp['caps'][3], color='red')
    setp(bp['whiskers'][2], color='red')
    setp(bp['whiskers'][3], color='red')
    setp(bp['fliers'][2], color='red')
    setp(bp['fliers'][3], color='red')
    setp(bp['medians'][1], color='red')

# Some fake data to plot
A= [[1, 2, 5,],  [7, 2]]
B = [[5, 7, 2, 2, 5], [7, 2, 5]]
C = [[3,2,5,7], [6, 7, 3]]

fig = figure()
ax = axes()
hold(True)

# first boxplot pair
bp = boxplot(A, positions = [1, 2], widths = 0.6)
setBoxColors(bp)

# second boxplot pair
bp = boxplot(B, positions = [4, 5], widths = 0.6)
setBoxColors(bp)

# thrid boxplot pair
bp = boxplot(C, positions = [7, 8], widths = 0.6)
setBoxColors(bp)

# set axes limits and labels
xlim(0,9)
ylim(0,9)
ax.set_xticklabels(['A', 'B', 'C'])
ax.set_xticks([1.5, 4.5, 7.5])

# draw temporary red and blue lines and use them to create a legend
hB, = plot([1,1],'b-')
hR, = plot([1,1],'r-')
legend((hB, hR),('Apples', 'Oranges'))
hB.set_visible(False)
hR.set_visible(False)

savefig('boxcompare.png')
show()

A simple way would be to use pandas. I adapted an example from the plotting documentation:

In [1]: import pandas as pd, numpy as np

In [2]: df = pd.DataFrame(np.random.rand(12,2), columns=['Apples', 'Oranges'] )

In [3]: df['Categories'] = pd.Series(list('AAAABBBBCCCC'))

In [4]: pd.options.display.mpl_style = 'default'

In [5]: df.boxplot(by='Categories')
Out[5]: 
array([<matplotlib.axes.AxesSubplot object at 0x51a5190>,
       <matplotlib.axes.AxesSubplot object at 0x53fddd0>], dtype=object)