Legend Setting (numpoints And Scatterpoints) In Matplotlib Does Not Work

I tried to get the legend right for the dashed line so I played with the rcParams a little bit, but it for some reasons wouldn't work on my computer. import numpy as np import mat

Solution 1:

If you make a plot with markers, matplotlib.rcParams['legend.numpoints'] adjust the number of points drawn on the legend lines.

If you substitute your plot by these:

axs.plot(range(10), '--k', label="line", marker='d')
axs.plot(range(10), range(10)[::-1], ':k', label="scatter", marker='o')

you get this image:

I don't know what does matplotlib.rcParams['legend.scatterpoints'] do, but I guess regulates the number of points in the legend of scatter plots.

If you want to change the length of the lines in the legend give a try with matplotlib.rcParams['legend.handlelength'] and/or matplotlib.rcParams['legend.handleheight']. More info about rc file can be found here

As suggested by @tcaswell, you don't have to set rc parameters. All the legend.* parameters are available as keywords for the legend function. See matplotlib.pyplot.legend documentation