matplotlib not showing first label on x axis for the Bar Plot

Question

Here is the code I am working on to create a logarithmic bar plot

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

fig = plt.figure(figsize = (12,6))

ax = fig.add_subplot(111)

x = ['Blue Whale', 'Killer Whale', 'Bluefin tuna', \
     'Bottlenose dolphin', "Maui's dolphin", 'Flounder',\
     'Starfish', 'Spongebob Squarepants']

y = [190000, 5987, 684, 650, 40, 6.8, 5, 0.02]

ax.bar(np.arange(len(x)),y, log=1)

ax.set_xticklabels(x, rotation = 45)


fig.savefig(filename = "f:/plot.png")

Now this is creating the bar plot where its not showing the first label, which is Blue Whale. Here is the plot I am getting So how can this be rectified ? Matplotlib version is 2.0.0 and Numpy version is 1.12.1

Thanks

This problem was not present on my matplotlib 1.5.3, but appeared after I just upgraded to 2.0.0 — Martin Evans, Apr 28 '17 at 07:14

score 31 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 28 '17 at 07:19

31

In matplotlib 2.0 there might be unshown tickmarks at the edges of the axes. To be on the safe side, you can set the tick locations in addition to the tick labels,

ax.set_xticks(np.arange(len(x)))
ax.set_xticklabels(x, rotation = 45)

You may also want to set the labels to align to their right edge, if they're rotated:

ax.set_xticklabels(x, rotation = 45, ha="right")

answered Apr 28 '17 at 07:19

ImportanceOfBeingErnest

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Make sense now! – user9026 Apr 28 '17 at 07:44
I still have no idea why, but this worked for me too. I had previously used `set_xticks(some_array_of_numbers)` but it did not work. Thank you, though! – pookie Mar 19 '19 at 12:17

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 28 '17 at 07:19

Yeah agreed that's kinda weird. Anyway, here's a way around it (just define the xticks before).

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

x = ['Blue Whale', 'Killer Whale', 'Bluefin tuna', \
     'Bottlenose dolphin', "Maui's dolphin", 'Flounder',\
     'Starfish', 'Spongebob Squarepants']

y = [190000, 5987, 684, 650, 40, 6.8, 5, 0.02]


fig = plt.figure(figsize = (12,6))
ax = fig.add_subplot(111)
ax.bar(np.arange(len(x)),y, log=1)
ax.set_xticks(np.arange(len(x)))
ax.set_xticklabels(x, rotation = 45, zorder=100)
fig.show()

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:46

set_xticklabels() will set the displayed text refer to this. So modify like this should work:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

fig = plt.figure(figsize = (12,6))

ax = fig.add_subplot(111)

x = ['Blue Whale', 'Killer Whale', 'Bluefin tuna', \
 'Bottlenose dolphin', "Maui's dolphin", 'Flounder',\
 'Starfish', 'Spongebob Squarepants']

y = [190000, 5987, 684, 650, 40, 6.8, 5, 0.02]

pos = np.arange(len(x))
ax.bar(pos,y, log=1)
ax.set_xticks(pos)
ax.set_xticklabels(x, rotation = 45)

matplotlib not showing first label on x axis for the Bar Plot

3 Answers3