Matplotlib Table- Assign different text alignments to different columns

Question

I am creating a two column table and want the text to be as close as possible. How can I specify that the first column be right aligned and the second be left aligned?

I've tried by setting the general cellloc to one side (cellloc sets the text alignment)

from matplotlib import pyplot as plt

data = [['x','x'] for x in range(10)]
bbox = [0,0,1,1]

tb = plt.table(cellText = data, cellLoc='right', bbox = bbox)
plt.axis('off') # get rid of chart axis to only show table

Then looping through cells in the second columns to set them to left align:

for key, cell in tb.get_celld().items():
    if key[1] == 1: # if the y value is equal to 1, meaning the second column
        cell._text.set_horizontalalignment('left') # then change the alignment

This loop immediately above has no effect, and the text remains right aligned.

Am I missing something? Or is this not possible?

EDIT

A workaround is for me to separate the data into two different lists, one for each column. This produces the results I'm looking for, but I'd like to know if anyone knows of another way.

data_col1 = [xy[0] for xy in data]
data_col2 = [xy[1] for xy in data] 

tb = plt.table(cellText = data_col2, rowLabels=data_col1, cellLoc='left', rowLoc='right', bbox = bbox)

Answer 1

Instead of setting the alignment of the text itself, you need to set the position of the text inside the table cell. This is determined by the cell's ._loc attribute.

def set_align_for_column(table, col, align="left"):
    cells = [key for key in table._cells if key[1] == col]
    for cell in cells:
        table._cells[cell]._loc = align

Some complete example:

from matplotlib import pyplot as plt

data = [['x','x'] for x in range(10)]
bbox = [0,0,1,1]

tb = plt.table(cellText = data, cellLoc='right', bbox = bbox)
plt.axis('off') # get rid of chart axis to only show table

def set_align_for_column(table, col, align="left"):
    cells = [key for key in table._cells if key[1] == col]
    for cell in cells:
        table._cells[cell]._loc = align

set_align_for_column(tb, col=0, align="right")
set_align_for_column(tb, col=1, align="left")

plt.show()

(The approach used here is similar to changing the cell padding as in this question: Matplotlib Text Alignment in Table)

Answer 2

Another possible solution would be to use the method get_celld() of your table which returns a dictionary of matplotlib.table.CustomCell objects which you can then loop through and change in a similar way that @ImportanceOfBeingErnest's answer does:

from matplotlib import pyplot as plt

data = [['x','x'] for x in range(10)]
bbox = [0,0,1,1]

tb = plt.table(cellText = data, cellLoc='right', bbox = bbox)
plt.axis('off')

cells = tb.get_celld()

for i in range(0, len(data)):
    cells[i, 1]._loc = 'left'   # 0 is first column, 1 is second column

plt.show()

Which will give the same result.