Python Side By Side Matplotlib Boxplots With Colors

I followed the examples on this link on how to create a boxplot with colors. I have been trying different ways to separate these boxplots on two different positions instead of bot

Solution 1:

What about using a pre-made boxplot from seaborn?

import seaborn as sns
sns.boxplot(data=[data1, data2])

If you want to choose the colors manually you can use the xkcd color list:

sns.boxplot(
    data=[data1, data2],
    palette=[sns.xkcd_rgb["pale red"], sns.xkcd_rgb["medium green"]],
    showmeans=True,
)

Solution 2:

Although I do think Sasha's answer is probably the best choice given the circumstance, if you really want to keep the appearance of your original post, you have to modify your code so that you are using only one call to boxplot. That way, matplotlib takes care of positioning them correctly on the axes. You can then iterate over the dictionary returned by by boxplot to adjust the output

data1 = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
data2 = [4, 5, 6, 7, 8]
data3 = [0, 1, 2]
data = [data1,data2, data3]
colors = ['red','green','blue']
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
box_dict = ax.boxplot(data, patch_artist=True,  showmeans=True)
for item in ['boxes', 'fliers', 'medians', 'means']:
    for sub_item,color in zip(box_dict[item], colors):
        plt.setp(sub_item, color=color)
# whiskers and caps have to be treated separately since there are two of each for each plot
for item in ['whiskers', 'caps']:
    for sub_items,color in zip(zip(box_dict[item][::2],box_dict[item][1::2]),colors):
        plt.setp(sub_items, color=color)

Solution 3:

To keep your code mostly intact, you can just add another argument for the position to your function.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

def color_boxplot(data, color, pos=[0], ax=None):
    ax = ax or plt.gca()
    bp = ax.boxplot(data, patch_artist=True,  showmeans=True, positions=pos)
    for item in ['boxes', 'whiskers', 'fliers', 'medians', 'caps']:
        plt.setp(bp[item], color=color)


data1 = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
data2 = [4, 5, 6, 7, 8]
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
bp1 = color_boxplot(data1, 'green', [1])
bp2 = color_boxplot(data2, 'red', [2])
ax.autoscale()
ax.set(xticks=[1,2], xticklabels=[1,2])
plt.show()