[python] Date ticks and rotation in matplotlib

I am having an issue trying to get my date ticks rotated in matplotlib. A small sample program is below. If I try to rotate the ticks at the end, the ticks do not get rotated. If I try to rotate the ticks as shown under the comment 'crashes', then matplot lib crashes.

This only happens if the x-values are dates. If I replaces the variable dates with the variable t in the call to avail_plot, the xticks(rotation=70) call works just fine inside avail_plot.

Any ideas?

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import datetime as dt

def avail_plot(ax, x, y, label, lcolor):
    ax.plot(x,y,'b')
    ax.set_ylabel(label, rotation='horizontal', color=lcolor)
    ax.get_yaxis().set_ticks([])

    #crashes
    #plt.xticks(rotation=70)

    ax2 = ax.twinx()
    ax2.plot(x, [1 for a in y], 'b')
    ax2.get_yaxis().set_ticks([])
    ax2.set_ylabel('testing')

f, axs = plt.subplots(2, sharex=True, sharey=True)
t = np.arange(0.01, 5, 1)
s1 = np.exp(t)
start = dt.datetime.now()
dates=[]
for val in t:
    next_val = start + dt.timedelta(0,val)
    dates.append(next_val)
    start = next_val

avail_plot(axs[0], dates, s1, 'testing', 'green')
avail_plot(axs[1], dates, s1, 'testing2', 'red')
plt.subplots_adjust(hspace=0, bottom=0.3)
plt.yticks([0.5,],("",""))
#doesn't crash, but does not rotate the xticks
#plt.xticks(rotation=70)
plt.show()

Simply use

ax.set_xticklabels(label_list, rotation=45)

An easy solution which avoids looping over the ticklabes is to just use

fig.autofmt_xdate()

This command automatically rotates the xaxis labels and adjusts their position. The default values are a rotation angle 30° and horizontal alignment "right". But they can be changed in the function call

fig.autofmt_xdate(bottom=0.2, rotation=30, ha='right')

The additional bottom argument is equivalent to setting plt.subplots_adjust(bottom=bottom), which allows to set the bottom axes padding to a larger value to host the rotated ticklabels.

So basically here you have all the settings you need to have a nice date axis in a single command.

A good example can be found on the matplotlib page.

Another way to applyhorizontalalignment and rotation to each tick label is doing a for loop over the tick labels you want to change:

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import datetime as dt

now = dt.datetime.now()
hours = [now + dt.timedelta(minutes=x) for x in range(0,24*60,10)]
days = [now + dt.timedelta(days=x) for x in np.arange(0,30,1/4.)]
hours_value = np.random.random(len(hours))
days_value = np.random.random(len(days))

fig, axs = plt.subplots(2)
fig.subplots_adjust(hspace=0.75)
axs[0].plot(hours,hours_value)
axs[1].plot(days,days_value)

for label in axs[0].get_xmajorticklabels() + axs[1].get_xmajorticklabels():
    label.set_rotation(30)
    label.set_horizontalalignment("right")

And here is an example if you want to control the location of major and minor ticks:

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import datetime as dt

fig, axs = plt.subplots(2)
fig.subplots_adjust(hspace=0.75)
now = dt.datetime.now()
hours = [now + dt.timedelta(minutes=x) for x in range(0,24*60,10)]
days = [now + dt.timedelta(days=x) for x in np.arange(0,30,1/4.)]

axs[0].plot(hours,np.random.random(len(hours)))
x_major_lct = mpl.dates.AutoDateLocator(minticks=2,maxticks=10, interval_multiples=True)
x_minor_lct = matplotlib.dates.HourLocator(byhour = range(0,25,1))
x_fmt = matplotlib.dates.AutoDateFormatter(x_major_lct)
axs[0].xaxis.set_major_locator(x_major_lct)
axs[0].xaxis.set_minor_locator(x_minor_lct)
axs[0].xaxis.set_major_formatter(x_fmt)
axs[0].set_xlabel("minor ticks set to every hour, major ticks start with 00:00")

axs[1].plot(days,np.random.random(len(days)))
x_major_lct = mpl.dates.AutoDateLocator(minticks=2,maxticks=10, interval_multiples=True)
x_minor_lct = matplotlib.dates.DayLocator(bymonthday = range(0,32,1))
x_fmt = matplotlib.dates.AutoDateFormatter(x_major_lct)
axs[1].xaxis.set_major_locator(x_major_lct)
axs[1].xaxis.set_minor_locator(x_minor_lct)
axs[1].xaxis.set_major_formatter(x_fmt)
axs[1].set_xlabel("minor ticks set to every day, major ticks show first day of month")
for label in axs[0].get_xmajorticklabels() + axs[1].get_xmajorticklabels():
    label.set_rotation(30)
    label.set_horizontalalignment("right")

Solution works for matplotlib 2.1+

There exists an axes method tick_params that can change tick properties. It also exists as an axis method as set_tick_params

ax.tick_params(axis='x', rotation=45)

Or

ax.xaxis.set_tick_params(rotation=45)

As a side note, the current solution mixes the stateful interface (using pyplot) with the object-oriented interface by using the command plt.xticks(rotation=70). Since the code in the question uses the object-oriented approach, it's best to stick to that approach throughout. The solution does give a good explicit solution with plt.setp( axs[1].xaxis.get_majorticklabels(), rotation=70 )