labels are printed when set_xticklabels called

Question

Issue:

All labels are getting printed when setting the rotation for the x-axis label using set_xticklabels.

Code

winner_freq = pd.DataFrame(player_match.winner.value_counts().reset_index())
winner_freq_plot = sns.barplot(x='index', y='winner', data=winner_freq)
winner_freq_plot.set_xticklabels(winner_freq_plot.get_xticklabels(), rotation=90)

Screenshot

Fix that I tried

I don't have any idea how to fix it and googled but no answer, so I took the labels separately in a list and feed inside the set_xticklabels but still no luck.

Thanks in advance :)

Answer 1

This is not really a mistake, but rather, a characteristic of matplotlib, which seaborn uses. Most of its functions return values that in some way represent the computations that they have performed.

In this case, set_xticklabels modifies the tick labels, which are drawn with Text objects. It is those Text objects, collected in a list, that are returned.

What you perceive as the labels being "printed" is simply your Jupyter notebook representing that list as text.

If you do not wish to see this, use a semicolon at the end of the last statement in a cell to prevent its output.

Alternatively, you can assign the result to a throwaway variable, like this:

_ = winner_freq_plot.set_xticklabels(winner_freq_plot.get_xticklabels(), rotation=90)

That said, note that _ normally binds to the last return value, and you will override that by doing so.

Another alternative is to simply append a pass statement to your code. Since Jupyter will render the return value of the last statement in the cell, and pass returns nothing, you will not get any output.

Answer 2

if you are using jupyter notebook just

ax.set_xticklabels(...); <- line ends by a semicolon.