How to Prevent Overlapping Time Stamps on Matplotlib X-Axis?

How to Rotate X-Axis Tick Labels for Non-Overlapping Time Stamps

When dealing with large datasets with time-stamped values, the tick labels on the X-axis can become cluttered and difficult to read. To mitigate this issue, it's desirable to rotate the text labels for improved readability.

To rotate the X-axis tick labels, one can use the plt.xticks(rotation=90) function. This function takes a single argument, which specifies the rotation angle in degrees. A value of 90 degrees rotates the labels vertically, allowing for more legible and non-overlapping labels.

Here's an example where the time stamps are plotted.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import datetime

# Parse timestamps and delay values
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:]]

# Plot the data
plt.plot(time, delay)
plt.grid(b='on')

# Rotate the X-axis tick labels
plt.xticks(rotation=90)

# Save the plot
plt.savefig('test.png')

In this example, the plt.xticks(rotation=90) line ensures that the tick labels on the X-axis are rotated vertically, providing improved readability, particularly when the timestamps are densely packed together.

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