matplotlib.pyplot will not forget previous plots - how can I flush/refresh?

How do you get matplotlib.pyplot to "forget" previous plots

I am trying to plot multiple time using matplotlib.pyplot

The code looks like this:

def plottest():
    import numpy as np
    import matplotlib.pyplot as plt


    a=np.random.rand(10,)
    b=np.random.rand(10,)
    c=np.random.rand(10,)


    plt.plot(a,label='a')
    plt.plot(b,label='b')
    plt.plot(c,label='c')
    plt.legend(loc='upper left')
    plt.ylabel('mag')
    plt.xlabel('element)')
    plt.show()

    e=np.random.rand(10,)
    f=np.random.rand(10,)
    g=np.random.rand(10,)


    plt.plot(e,label='e')
    plt.plot(f,label='f')
    plt.plot(g,label='g')
    plt.legend(loc='upper left')
    plt.ylabel('mag')
    plt.xlabel('element)')
    plt.show()

Unfortunately I keep getting the same plot (actually from some other code which I ran and completed a while ago) no matter what I do.

Similar code has worked previously for me.

I have looked at these questions:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10819363/how-to-clean-the-slate

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5158447/matplotlib-pyplot-show-doesnt-work-once-closed?rq=1

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6187603/python-matplotlib-pyplot-show-blocking-or-not

and tried using plt.show(), plt.clf() and plt.close to no avail.

Any ideas?

I would rather use plt.clf() after every plt.show() to just clear the current figure instead of closing and reopening it, keeping the window size and giving you a better performance and much better memory usage.

Similarly, you could do plt.cla() to just clear the current axes.

To clear a specific axes, useful when you have multiple axes within one figure, you could do for example:

fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=2, ncols=2)

axes[0, 1].clear()

I discovered that this behaviour only occurs after running a particular script, similar to the one in the question. I have no idea why it occurs.

It works (refreshes the graphs) if I put

plt.clf()
plt.cla()
plt.close()

after every plt.show()