ENH: Made self.formatter not have to be an actual instace of Formatter

madphysicist · madphysicist · commit 53893d0a07fb · 2016-11-17T17:30:59.000-05:00
diff --git a/lib/matplotlib/ticker.py b/lib/matplotlib/ticker.py
@@ -1388,7 +1388,9 @@ class LinearScaleFormatter(Formatter):
         interpreted as ``(0, outRef)``.
     formatter: matplotlib.ticker.Formatter
         The instance to delegate the actual formatting of the
-        transformed value to.
+        transformed value to. This does not have to be an instance of
+        ``matplotlib.ticker.Formatter``. Any callable that accepts ``x``
+        and ``pos`` as arguments and returns a string will work.
     """
     def __init__(self, inRef=1.0, outRef=1.0, formatter=ScalarFormatter()):
         def unpack(ref, name):
@@ -1420,16 +1422,22 @@ def __call__(self, x, pos=None):
         return self.formatter(self.transform(x), pos)
 
     def set_axis(self, ax):
-        self.formatter.set_axis(ax)
+        if hasattr(self.formatter, 'set_axis'):
+            self.formatter.set_axis(ax)
 
     def get_offset(self):
-        return self.formatter.get_offset()
+        if hasattr(self.formatter, 'get_axis'):
+            return self.formatter.get_offset()
+        return super(LinearScaleFormatter, self).get_offset()
 
     def set_locs(self, locs):
-        self.formatter.set_locs([self.transform(x) for x in locs])
+        if hasattr(self.formatter, 'set_locs'):
+            self.formatter.set_locs([self.transform(x) for x in locs])
 
     def fix_minus(self, s):
-        return self.formatter.fix_minus(s)
+        if hasattr(self.formatter, 'fix_minus'):
+            return self.formatter.fix_minus(s)
+        return super(LinearScaleFormatter, self).fix_minus(s)
 
 
 class Locator(TickHelper):
