Why doesn't '%matplotlib inline' work in python script?

Other answers and comments have sufficiently detailed why %matplotlib inline cannot work in python scripts.

To solve the actual problem, which is to show the plot in a script, the answer is to use

plt.show()

at the end of the script.

If you are using notebook and run my_file.py file as a module

Change the line "%matplotlib inline" to "get_ipython().run_line_magic('matplotlib', 'inline')". Then run my_file.py using this %run It should look like this:

In my_file.py:

get_ipython().run_line_magic('matplotlib', 'inline')

In notebook:

%run my_file.py

This run my_file.py in ipython, which help avoid the bug

NameError: name 'get_ipython' is not defined

According to http://ipython.readthedocs.io/en/stable/interactive/magics.html, % is a special iPython/Jupyter command:

Define an alias for a system command.

%alias alias_name cmd defines alias_name as an alias for cmd

In standard Python, % takes the remainder when one number is divided by another (or can be used for string interpolation), so in a standard Python program, %matplotlib inline doesn't make any sense. It does, however, work in iPython, as described above.