figure.add_subplot(1311): ValueError: Illegal argument(s) to subplot: (1, 3, 1, 1)

[mmokrejs]

I did call _figure.add_subplot(1311) which breaks:

_ax1 = _figure.add_subplot(_ax1_num)

File "/usr/lib64/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/figure.py", line 889, in add_subplot
a = subplot_class_factory(projection_class)(self, _args, *_kwargs)
File "/usr/lib64/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/axes.py", line 8987, in init
raise ValueError('Illegal argument(s) to subplot: %s' % (args,))
ValueError: Illegal argument(s) to subplot: (1, 3, 1, 1)

Looks max height of the figure can be 9, that is subfigures will be 911, 912, 913, etc. Looks at least a check that the number is less than 999 would be meaningful. Ideally, something more clever like a REGEXP.

Happens on mpl-1.2.1.

[pelson]

The documentation for subplot (http://matplotlib.org/api/pyplot_api.html?highlight=subplot#matplotlib.pyplot.subplot) does state that the maximum number of rows/columns/plot_number is 9. The problem is that anything other than three digits is ill-defined. The solution is to use the better approach of plt.subplot(13, 1, 1).

Closing as this is a wontfix, and the documentation is already pretty good.

Cheers,

[mmokrejs]

Hi Phil,
thanks for a quick answer. It is good it is documented but I proposed a runtime check and asked for a meaningful error message. Even better if it can say that plt.subplot() supports more subfigures due to better API. This is exactly where mpl would benefit from better error messages. But do what you want otherwise. For me dynamically enlarging number of subfigures works fine until 91x and above 9 will later on enslave the plt.subplot() way.

[mdboom]

Yeah -- I tend to agree that a better error message would be nice here. Yet another way to help encourage people to use the multi-argument form...

[tacaswell]

flagged so this gets an improved error message.