module 'matplotlib.pyplot' has no attribute 'yaxis'

Question

I know this isn't reproducable but I'm not sure enough what is happening to make it that way. I'll update and re-answer if someone can explain.

ax = plt.plot( 'spending_billions', 'poverty_rates', data=pv_rates_df, marker='o', color='blue', linewidth=2, label = 'Black Poverty Rate')
plt.title("Black Poverty and Cash Reparations", fontsize=12, fontweight=0, color='Black')
plt.xlabel("Spending in Billions")
plt.ylabel("SPM Black Poverty Rates")
plt.yticks(np.arange(0, 22, 2))
plt.yaxis.set_major_formatter(mtick.PercentFormatter())
plt.legend()

I get this error. module 'matplotlib.pyplot' has no attribute 'yaxis'

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

As the error message says, yaxis does not exist on your plt object.

If you use pandas.DataFrame.plot , the return value is in fact matplotlib.axes.Axes , as your variable naming suggests. It seems however that you're using matplotlib.pyplot.plot , which returns a list of matplotlib.lines.Line2D objects.

yaxis is an attribute of matplotlib.axes.Axes . To get your current matplotlib.axes.Axes instance, you can use matplotlib.gca() (get current axes). So the following works:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.ticker as ticker

plt.scatter(range(5), range(5), s=3)
plt.gca().yaxis.set_major_formatter(ticker.PercentFormatter())
plt.show()