suggestion: set_xticklabels and set_yticklabels default to current labels

[chubukov]

I often find myself writing a construction like this:

ax.set_xticklabels([x.get_text() for x in ax.get_xticklabels()],rotation=90)

This just looks ugly and it feels to me like this should have the same effect:

ax.set_xticklabels(rotation=90)

which would just require handling labels=None and defaulting to the current labels.

Or is there already a more idiomatic way to do this that I'm missing?

[Phlya]

plt.setp(ax.xaxis.get_majorticklabels(), rotation=90) is probably more idiomatic?.. Definitely shorter.

[tacaswell]

The Axis objects should probably be updated to include rotation as a valid tick parameter.

I think this will require updating mpl.axis._translate_tick_kw to allow rotation as a key + a test + a whats_new entry.

With those changes I think you will be able to do

ax.xaxis.set_tick_params(which='both', rotation=90)

[tacaswell]

implemented by #6829