Matplotlib.ticker.MultipleLocator Class in Python

Matplotlib is an amazing visualization library in Python for 2D plots of arrays. Matplotlib is a multi-platform data visualization library built on NumPy arrays and designed to work with the broader SciPy stack.

matplotlib.ticker.MultipleLocator

The matplotlib.ticker.MultipleLocator class is used for setting a tick for every integer multiple of a base within the view interval.

Syntax: class matplotlib.ticker.MultipleLocator(base=1.0)

Methods of the class:

• set_params(self, base): It is used for setting the parameters within the locator.
• tick_values(self, vmin, vmax): For a given vmin and vmax it returns the values of the located ticks.
• view_limits(self, dmin, dmax): It is used for setting the view limits to the nearest multiples of base that contain the data.

Example 1:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.ticker as ticker


x = [0, 5, 9, 10, 15]
y = [0, 1, 2, 3, 4]

tick_spacing = 1

fig, ax = plt.subplots(1, 1)
ax.plot(x, y)
ax.xaxis.set_major_locator(ticker.MultipleLocator(tick_spacing))

plt.show()

Output:

Example 2:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.ticker


plt.plot([-1.5, 0, 1.5], [1, 3, 2])
ax = plt.gca()

func = lambda x, pos: str(x).rstrip('0').rstrip('.')

ax.xaxis.set_major_locator(matplotlib.ticker.MultipleLocator(0.25))
ax.xaxis.set_major_formatter(matplotlib.ticker.FuncFormatter(func))

plt.show()

Output: