Merge pull request #27481 from shriyakalakata/pylab_docs

timhoffm · web-flow · commit 444d0420842a · 2023-12-09T13:27:08.000+01:00
Fixing Pylab documentation in API interface overview
diff --git a/galleries/users_explain/figure/api_interfaces.rst b/galleries/users_explain/figure/api_interfaces.rst
@@ -285,6 +285,11 @@ Appendix: "pylab" interface
 ---------------------------
 
 There is one further interface that is highly discouraged, and that is to
-basically do ``from matplotlib.pyplot import *``.  This allows users to simply
-call ``plot(x, y)``.  While convenient, this can lead to obvious problems if the
-user unwittingly names a variable the same name as a pyplot method.
+basically do ``from matplotlib.pylab import *``. This imports all the
+functions from ``matplotlib.pyplot``, ``numpy``, ``numpy.fft``, ``numpy.linalg``, and
+``numpy.random``, and some additional functions into the global namespace.
+
+Such a pattern is considered bad practice in modern python, as it clutters
+the global namespace. Even more severely, in the case of ``pylab``, this will
+overwrite some builtin functions (e.g. the builtin ``sum`` will be replaced by
+``numpy.sum``), which can lead to unexpected behavior.
