Add option to pas existing axis object to the plot function

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@ SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-3.0-or-later
 [List of commits](https://git.ufz.de/rdm-software/saqc/-/compare/v2.2.1...develop)
 ### Added
 - add option to not overwrite existing flags to `concatFlags`
+- add option to pass existing axis object to `plot`
 ### Changed
 - Remove all flag value restrictions from the default flagging scheme `FloatTranslator` 
 - Renamed `TranslationScheme.forward` to `TranslationScheme.toInternal` 

saqc/funcs/tools.py

@@ -234,6 +234,7 @@ class ToolsMixin:
         xscope: Optional[slice] = None,
         phaseplot: Optional[str] = None,
         store_kwargs: Optional[dict] = None,
+        ax: mpl.axes.Axes | None = None,
         ax_kwargs: Optional[dict] = None,
         dfilter: float = FILTER_NONE,
         **kwargs,
@@ -297,7 +298,6 @@ class ToolsMixin:
         """
         data, flags = self._data.copy(), self._flags.copy()
 
-        interactive = path is None
         level = kwargs.get("flag", UNFLAGGED)
 
         if dfilter < np.inf:
@@ -309,9 +309,8 @@ class ToolsMixin:
         if ax_kwargs is None:
             ax_kwargs = {}
 
-        if interactive:
+        if not path:
             mpl.use(_MPL_DEFAULT_BACKEND)
-
         else:
             mpl.use("Agg")
 
@@ -324,13 +323,14 @@ class ToolsMixin:
             history=history,
             xscope=xscope,
             phaseplot=phaseplot,
+            ax=ax,
             ax_kwargs=ax_kwargs,
         )
 
-        if interactive:
+        if ax is None:
             plt.show()
 
-        else:
+        if path:
             if store_kwargs.pop("pickle", False):
                 with open(path, "wb") as f:
                     pickle.dump(fig, f)

saqc/lib/plotting.py

@@ -6,6 +6,8 @@
 
 # -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
 
+from __future__ import annotations
+
 import itertools
 from typing import Optional, Union
 
@@ -58,11 +60,12 @@ def makeFig(
     field: str,
     flags: Flags,
     level: float,
-    max_gap: Optional[str] = None,
-    history: Union[Optional[Literal["valid", "complete"]], list] = "valid",
-    xscope: Optional[slice] = None,
-    phaseplot: Optional[str] = None,
-    ax_kwargs: Optional[dict] = None,
+    max_gap: str | None = None,
+    history: Literal["valid", "complete"] | None | list[str] = "valid",
+    xscope: slice | None = None,
+    phaseplot: str | None = None,
+    ax: mpl.axes.Axes | None = None,
+    ax_kwargs: dict | None = None,
 ):
     """
     Returns a figure object, containing data graph with flag marks for field.
@@ -152,9 +155,10 @@ def makeFig(
         d = _insertBlockingNaNs(d, max_gap)
 
     # figure composition
-    fig = mpl.pyplot.figure(constrained_layout=True, **FIG_KWARGS)
-    grid = fig.add_gridspec()
-    ax = fig.add_subplot(grid[0])
+    if ax is None:
+        fig = mpl.pyplot.figure(constrained_layout=True, **FIG_KWARGS)
+        grid = fig.add_gridspec()
+        ax = fig.add_subplot(grid[0])
 
     _plotVarWithFlags(
         ax,
@@ -172,7 +176,7 @@ def makeFig(
     )
 
     plt.rcParams["font.size"] = default
-    return fig
+    return ax.figure
 
 
 def _plotVarWithFlags(