How to set date tick labels on x axis, only for given points on matplotlib

Question

I am trying to set date tick labels on x axis, only for given points. For example if I have a list of datetime for values on x axis

x = [ datetime.datetime(..), ... , datetime.datetime()]

I tried with ax.xaxis.set_ticklabels(x).

I want to plot date only for each one of six points present in list but I get this result:

The code I used to get this plot is the following:

# figure's size in inch
fig = Figure(figsize=(8, 8))
# axes' position                                
ax = Axes(fig, [.1, .1, .8, .8])
ax.errorbar(matplotlib.dates.date2num(x), y, yerr=el['e'], fmt=format_string, label=label)

# shrinks current axis to 90%
box = ax.get_position()
ax.set_position([box.x0, box.y0, box.width * 0.9, box.height])
# puts a legend to the right of the current axis
ax.legend(loc='center left', bbox_to_anchor=(1, 0.5))
# autoscales axes following data limits
ax.autoscale(tight=False)

dateFmt = matplotlib.dates.DateFormatter('%Y-%m-%d')
ax.xaxis.set_major_formatter(dateFmt)
monthsLoc = matplotlib.dates.MonthLocator()
daysLoc = matplotlib.dates.DayLocator(interval=1)
ax.xaxis.set_major_locator(monthsLoc)
ax.xaxis.set_minor_locator(daysLoc)
fig.autofmt_xdate(bottom=0.18)

# I tried to set tick labels with this but with no results
#ax.xaxis.set_ticklabels(x)
# adds axes to figure
fig.add_axes(ax)
# creates a canvas from figure
canvas = FigureCanvasAgg(fig)
# saves figure to filesystem in png format
canvas.print_figure(settings.MEDIA_ROOT + file_relative_path)

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks

Answer 1

To set ticks and their labels use:

x = [ datetime.datetime(..), ... , datetime.datetime()]
ax.xaxis.set_ticks(x)