As a note, this has come up on SO http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19022601/matplotlib-data-accessible-outside-of-xlim-range

@mspacek: Can you confirm the attached PR fixes your issue?

Thanks! Yes, it fixes the example provided above, but unfortunately that example was a bit too simplistic. In my specific case, I'm using scatter() and assigning a colour to each and every point. In that case, after applying the fix, the empty plot saved to PDF is still as large as the non-empty plot. It's the colour assignment that seems to be the culprit. Otherwise, scatter() seems to work as it should:

import numpy as np
x = np.random.random(20000)
y = np.random.random(20000)
c = np.random.random(20000)

figure()
scatter(x, y)
pyplot.savefig('scatter.pdf')
xlim(2, 3) # move axes away for empty plot
pyplot.savefig('scatter_empty.pdf')
'''
file sizes in bytes:
scatter.pdf:       324187
scatter_empty.pdf:   6617
'''
figure()
scatter(x, y, c=c)
pyplot.savefig('scatter_color.pdf')
xlim(2, 3) # move axes away for empty plot
pyplot.savefig('scatter_color_empty.pdf')
'''
file sizes in bytes:
scatter_color.pdf:       410722
scatter_color_empty.pdf: 413541
'''

Scatter is an entirely different code path from markers (except in the optimized case where the points are all the same color/size/etc in which it falls back to markers). Scatter uses collections (which are more flexible/powerful), and thus will require a much more complex solution. Can you open a new bug for that?

Done. Opened #2488

Thanks!

8eede37 updates this to also test SVG. We can't do PS, unfortunately, because it closes the file handle (that's a hairier bug for another time).

Hi all,

sorry to reopen this old shoe, but this problem does still seem to exists in Python when I save an SVG file. However, exporting a PDF seems to be okay.

using matplotlib 1.5.3
python 3.4 (anaconda)
linux x64

What are you using as your svg renderer? There was a long standing bug with rsvg, now fixed, (see #4341) where they did not correctly render valid svg.

ah, interesting. I don't know exactly what version it is. however, chromium renders it correctly. I use Inkscape for post-processing my svg images, and Inkscape also gets it wrong, i.e. renders it with the data not clipped (inkscape 0.91 and 0.92).

Can you provide a minimal example? thanks.

@anntzer

svg + pdf.zip

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

f1 = plt.figure(num=None, figsize=(9/2.54/3, 9/2.54/2), dpi=400, facecolor='w', edgecolor='k')

c1 = 'blue'

xx = np.logspace(np.log(0.01), np.log(500), 100);
p = 3;
T2 = 10 # us
coh = lambda t: np.exp(-t/T2)
plt.plot(xx, coh(xx),lw=1.5, color=c1)

plt.xlim([0.01, 100000])
plt.ylim([0, 1.1])

ax = plt.gca()
ax.tick_params(axis="both", which="both", bottom="off", top="off",    
                labelbottom="off", left="off", right="off", labelleft="off")

plt.xscale('log')
plt.yscale('linear')

plt.savefig('exp.svg')
plt.savefig('exp.pdf')
plt.show()

Same problem here: the svg export renders correctly with Firefox, but Inkscape does not clip data outside requested axis limits. Did you find a solution @ebauch ?

@LeBarbouze I just import pdfs in Inkscape these days, works much better! Python exported SVG get it wrong most of the time.

The problem is not the svgs generated by Matplotlib, it is old versions of librsvg not properly handling valid svg.

@tacaswell sorry, I didn't mean to imply matplotlib is the culprit.

@ebauch Sorry, I am a tad touchy about this (it consumed a fair amount of oxygen a while ago and resulted in my reading decent chunk of the svg spec). Definitely do not want to re-litigate it 😉 .