Centering x-tick labels between tick marks in Matplotlib

Matplotlib Python Data Visualization

Python Data Science basics with Numpy, Pandas and Matplotlib

Data Visualization using MatPlotLib & Seaborn

DATAhill Solutions Srinivas Reddy

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MatPlotLib with Python

DATAhill Solutions Srinivas Reddy

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To place labels between two ticks, we can take the following steps−

Load some sample data, r.
Create a copy of the array, cast to a specified type.
Create a figure and a set of subplots using subplots() method.
Plot date and r sample data.
Set the locator of the major/minor ticker using set_major_locator() and set_minor_locator() methods.
Set the locator of the major/minor formatter using set_major_locator() and set_minor_formatter() methods.
Now, place the ticklabel at the center.
To display the figure, use show() method.

Example

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.cbook as cbook
import matplotlib.dates as dates
import matplotlib.ticker as ticker
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.rcParams["figure.figsize"] = [7.00, 3.50]
plt.rcParams["figure.autolayout"] = True
with cbook.get_sample_data('aapl.npz') as fh:
   r = np.load(fh)['price_data'].view(np.recarray)
r = r[-250:]
date = r.date.astype('O')
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.plot(date, r.adj_close)
ax.xaxis.set_major_locator(dates.MonthLocator())
ax.xaxis.set_minor_locator(dates.MonthLocator(bymonthday=15))
ax.xaxis.set_major_formatter(ticker.NullFormatter())
ax.xaxis.set_minor_formatter(dates.DateFormatter('%b'))
for tick in ax.xaxis.get_minor_ticks():
   tick.tick1line.set_markersize(0)
   tick.tick2line.set_markersize(0)
   tick.label1.set_horizontalalignment('center')
imid = len(r) // 2
ax.set_xlabel(str(date[imid].year))
plt.show()