Matplotlib's boxplot does not use numeric x values and therefore uses too many ticks

Question

when using boxplot with matplotlib , I wouldlike to have the x ticks to adapt to the figure size, so that the x-axis is not completely unreadable

Example

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

x = np.random.uniform(size = (20, 50))
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.boxplot(x, positions=np.arange(1, x.shape[1]+1))

which gives me

I expected the tick labels to adapt as for a regular plot, but apparently not. Any workarounds?

Seaborn's boxplot with native_scale=True would give you a numeric x-axis. — JohanC
– JohanC, Commented Sep 6, 2024 at 15:39
E.g. sns.boxplot(x, native_scale=True) example plot. Or sns.boxplot(pd.DataFrame(x, columns=np.arange(1, x.shape[1]+1)), native_scale=True) to start the numbering at 1. — JohanC
– JohanC, Commented Sep 6, 2024 at 16:21

Stef · Accepted Answer · 2024-09-06 15:51:35Z

1

Boxplot uses a FixedLocator to determine the tick locations, change it to AutoLocator:

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib.ticker import AutoLocator, ScalarFormatter

x = np.random.uniform(size = (20, 50))
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.boxplot(x, positions=np.arange(1, x.shape[1]+1))
ax.xaxis.set_major_locator(AutoLocator())
ax.xaxis.set_major_formatter(ScalarFormatter())

edited Sep 6, 2024 at 15:51

answered Sep 6, 2024 at 15:35

Stef

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