# RecipesBase: Reuse a @series and use/work with provided limits

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/recipesbase-reuse-a-series-and-use-work-with-provided-limits/51290>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Tags:** question, plotting, plots, recipe\
**Created:** [December 5, 2020, 8:36am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/recipesbase-reuse-a-series-and-use-work-with-provided-limits/51290 "2020-12-05T08:36:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kellertuer](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/kellertuer/32/220707_2.png) [@kellertuer](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/kellertuer)\
**Post date:** [December 5, 2020, 8:36am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/recipesbase-reuse-a-series-and-use-work-with-provided-limits/51290/1 "2020-12-05T08:36:33Z")

</div>

I am starting to really appreciate how RecipesBase works, now that I slowly understand the scheme. Maybe for now this is limited to user recipes, but nevertheless, really neat!

Currently I have one point left, where I am reproducing code, that I would like to only do once. Consider the following example, which I tried to get minimal

```plaintext
using Plots, RecipesBase, Colors
gr()

struct myType
d::Int
s::Int
end

@recipe function f(m::myType)
    @series begin
        seriestype := surface
        fillcolor := RGBA(0.0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.0)
        legend := :none
        return [-m.d,-m.d,m.d,m.d,-m.d], [-m.d,m.d,m.d,-m.d,-m.d], [0,0,0,0,0]
    end
end

@recipe function f(m::myType, pts::AbstractVector{T}) where {T}
    @series begin
        seriestype := surface
        fillcolor := RGBA(0.0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.0)
        legend := :none
        return [-m.d,-m.d,m.d,m.d,-m.d], [-m.d,m.d,m.d,-m.d,-m.d], [0,0,0,0,0]
    end
    return [p[1] for p ∈ pts], [p[2] for p ∈ pts], [p[3] for p ∈ pts]
end

D = myType(3,2)
scene1plot(D)
scene2 = plot(D, [[1,1,1],[2,2,2]])

```

Then scene 2 looks like  
 ![a](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/9/9/9930803bac0a9885ae4a7f2e79ece494b0dac149.png)

Which is (up to my laziness to remove the colormap) what I would like to have.

1. As you can see the inner `@series` appears twice in the code, or in other words I would like to just use the first recipe as part of the second. Could that be done?

2. I would like to avoid redrawing this first recipe in `plot!` cases, i.e. only draw the surface once for the first appearance of such a user recipe. Is that possible?

3. I would like to make the inner `@series` depend on `xlim`/`ylim` (i.e. make the surface similarly large) can I somehow check what the user provided for these values within the recipe?

For context: The first type introduces a context for the data `pts` in my application see for example [Hyperbolic space · Manifolds.jl](https://juliamanifolds.github.io/Manifolds.jl/latest/manifolds/hyperbolic.html#poincare_ball_plot) for a first sketch of what I aim to do.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![BeastyBlacksmith](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/beastyblacksmith/32/4741_2.png) [@BeastyBlacksmith](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/BeastyBlacksmith)\
**Post date:** [December 5, 2020, 9:12am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/recipesbase-reuse-a-series-and-use-work-with-provided-limits/51290/2 "2020-12-05T09:12:42Z")

</div>

If you want to avoid code duplication you could write the above as one recipe like this:

```julia
using Plots, RecipesBase, Colors
gr()

struct myType
d::Int
s::Int
end

@recipe function f(m::myType, pts::Union{AbstractVector{T}, Nothing} = nothing) where {T}
    @series begin
        seriestype := surface
        fillcolor := RGBA(0.0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.0)
        legend := :none
        return [-m.d,-m.d,m.d,m.d,-m.d], [-m.d,m.d,m.d,-m.d,-m.d], [0,0,0,0,0]
    end
    if pts !== nothing
        return [p[1] for p ∈ pts], [p[2] for p ∈ pts], [p[3] for p ∈ pts]
    end
end

D = myType(3,2)
scene1plot(D)
scene2 = plot(D, [[1,1,1],[2,2,2]])

```

It is also possible to chain recipes via dispatch, like: create a recipe for `MyType` write a recipe for `MyType2` which returns a `MyType` object. I don’t quite see, if it helps in this case though.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kellertuer](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/kellertuer/32/220707_2.png) [@kellertuer](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/kellertuer)\
**Post date:** [December 5, 2020, 9:15am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/recipesbase-reuse-a-series-and-use-work-with-provided-limits/51290/3 "2020-12-05T09:15:34Z")

</div>

That’s a nice way, though my concrete example even does that one step further (having `pts` and `vecs` as possibly-nothing-vallues. But sure, that is a neat way that should work.

**Edit:** Reusing the recipe for `myType` within the `myType, pts` signature would still be neat I think, i.e. like with `@series` to trigger another user recipe within a recipe. Not with two types but this two signatures.  
This is because I just noticed that my `pts` change their meaning (appeatance to be precise) depending on whether `vecs` are provided with the recipes for  
`myType,pts` (which plots points) and `myType,pts,vecs` (which more like quivers, but in a quite specific way).

**Edit2** : I got it to work 🙂 So my first point is solved. Thanks!