Plot with a break in the y-axis

plot_with_ybreak.py

def bar_with_breakline(x, y, plot_type='bar', height_ratios=[10,1],
                      figsize=(10,5), title=None, ylabel=None, xlabel=None):
    if plot_type == 'bar':
        pplot = plt.bar
    elif plot_type == 'line':
        pplot = plt.plot
    else:
        sys.exit('Error: plot type not yet supported, closing')

    gs = gridspec.GridSpec(2,1, height_ratios=[10,1]) 
    fig, ax = plt.subplots(2, 1, sharex=True, figsize=figsize)
    ratio = height_ratios[0]/height_ratios[1]

    ax[0] = plt.subplot(gs[0])
    pplot(x, y)
    ax[0].set_ylim(y.min()-0.05*y.min(), y.max()+0.05*y.max())
    ax[0].set_title(title)
    ax[0].set_ylabel(ylabel)
    
    # Use ticks of plot 1 for the ticks of plot 2
    ytick_interval = ax[0].get_yticks()[1] - ax[0].get_yticks()[0]

    ax[1] = plt.subplot(gs[1])
    pplot(x, y)
    ax[1].set_ylim(0, ytick_interval)
    ax[1].set_xlabel(xlabel)

    # hide the spines between ax and ax2
    ax[0].spines['bottom'].set_visible(False)
    ax[1].spines['top'].set_visible(False)
    ax[0].tick_params(bottom=False, labelbottom=False)  # don't put tick labels at the top
    ax[1].xaxis.tick_bottom()

    # Add breakline on yaxis
    d = .015  # how big to make the diagonal lines in axes coordinates
    # arguments to pass to plot, just so we don't keep repeating them
    kwargs = dict(transform=ax[0].transAxes, color='k', clip_on=False)
    ax[0].plot((-d, +d), (-d, +d), **kwargs)        # top-left diagonal
    ax[0].plot((1 - d, 1 + d), (-d, +d), **kwargs)  # top-right diagonal

    kwargs.update(transform=ax[1].transAxes)  # switch to the bottom axes
    ax[1].plot((-d, +d), (1 - ratio*d, 1 + ratio*d), **kwargs)  # bottom-left diagonal
    ax[1].plot((1 - d, 1 + d), (1 - ratio*d, 1 + ratio*d), **kwargs)  # bottom-right diagonal
    
    plt.show()