How Can I Prevent Overlapping Time Stamp Labels on Matplotlib X-Axis?

Rotating Axis Tick Labels for Non-Overlapping Time Stamps

When dealing with time-stamped data, the increasing number of samples often leads to cluttered and overlapping tick labels on the X axis. To prevent this and improve readability, rotating these labels can be beneficial.

Solution:

To rotate the X axis tick labels, you can simply append plt.xticks(rotation=90) to your existing code. This will rotate the labels by 90 degrees, making them vertical and less likely to overlap.

Code Snippet:

Below is your code with the addition of the plt.xticks(rotation=90) line to rotate the X axis tick labels:

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.xticks(rotation=90)  # Rotate the X axis tick labels by 90 degrees

plt.savefig('test.png')

By incorporating this line into your code, the X axis tick labels will be displayed vertically and more legible, even as the time stamps become more frequent and closer together.

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