I can't figure out how to rotate the text on the X Axis. Its a time stamp, so as the number of samples increase, they get closer and closer until they overlap. I'd like to rotate the text 90 degrees so as the samples get closer together, they aren't overlapping.
Below is what I have, it works fine with the exception that I can't figure out how to rotate the X axis text.
import sys
import matplotlib
matplotlib.use('Agg')
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import datetime
font = {'family' : 'normal',
'weight' : 'bold',
'size' : 8}
matplotlib.rc('font', **font)
values = open('stats.csv', 'r').readlines()
time = [datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(float(i.split(',')[0].strip())) for i in values[1:]]
delay = [float(i.split(',')[1].strip()) for i in values[1:]]
plt.plot(time, delay)
plt.grid(b='on')
plt.savefig('test.png')
13 Answers
This works for me:
plt.xticks(rotation=90)
Many "correct" answers here but I'll add one more since I think some details are left out of several. The OP asked for 90 degree rotation but I'll change to 45 degrees because when you use an angle that isn't zero or 90, you should change the horizontal alignment as well; otherwise your labels will be off-center and a bit misleading (and I'm guessing many people who come here want to rotate axes to something other than 90).
Easiest / Least Code
Option 1
plt.xticks(rotation=45, ha='right')
As mentioned previously, that may not be desirable if you'd rather take the Object Oriented approach.
Option 2
Another fast way (it's intended for date objects but seems to work on any label; doubt this is recommended though):
fig.autofmt_xdate(rotation=45)
fig you would usually get from:
fig = plt.gcf()fig = plt.figure()fig, ax = plt.subplots()fig = ax.figure
