• Cookbook
• Matplotlib
• Django

Using MatPlotLib to dynamically generate charts in a Django web service

You need to have a working Django installation, plus matplotlib.

Example 1 - PIL Buffer

# file charts.py
def simple(request):
 import random
 import django
 import datetime
 
 from matplotlib.backends.backend_agg import FigureCanvasAgg as FigureCanvas
 from matplotlib.figure import Figure
 from matplotlib.dates import DateFormatter

 fig=Figure()
 ax=fig.add_subplot(111)
 x=[]
 y=[]
 now=datetime.datetime.now()
 delta=datetime.timedelta(days=1)
 for i in range(10):
 x.append(now)
 now+=delta
 y.append(random.randint(0, 1000))
 ax.plot_date(x, y, '-')
 ax.xaxis.set_major_formatter(DateFormatter('%Y-%m-%d'))
 fig.autofmt_xdate()
 canvas=FigureCanvas(fig)
 response=django.http.HttpResponse(content_type='image/png')
 canvas.print_png(response)
 return response

Since some versions of Internet Explorer ignore the content_type. The URL should end with ".png". You can create an entry in your urls.py like this:

 ...
 (r'^charts/simple.png$', 'myapp.views.charts.simple'),
 ...

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