Bug report

Bug summary

In my custom matplotlib style sheet, I want to format the dates in such a way that includes a new line character, i.e., %b %d\n%H:%M. But matplotlib will not recognize the new line character and instead prints \n as text on my figure.

More details here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/59144140/matplotlib-cutsom-style-sheet-format-dates-with-new-line-character?noredirect=1#comment104516325_59144140

Code for reproduction

In my my_style.mplstyle file, I have this formatting instruction for the dates (note the new line character):

    date.autoformatter.hour    : %b %d\n%H:%M

When I load the style sheet and make a plot with dates on the x axis, it displays the \n as text rather than recognizing it as a new line character.

    import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
    plt.style.use('my_style')
    import pandas as pd
    from datetime import datetime
    DATES = pd.date_range(datetime(2019, 1, 1), datetime(2019, 1, 2), 6)
    plt.plot(DATES, range(len(DATES)))

Actual outcome

# If applicable, paste the console output here
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Expected outcome

I can get the desired outcome if I use the manual method to change the date formats directly in my code, but I would rather avoid repeating these lines of code in all my plotting scripts. That is why I want to use the style sheet to do this.

    import matplotlib.dates as mdates
    myFmt = mdates.DateFormatter('%b %d\n%H:%M')
    plt.plot(DATES, range(len(DATES)))
    plt.gca().xaxis.set_major_formatter(myFmt)

Matplotlib version

• Operating system: Windows
• Matplotlib version: 3.1.2
• Matplotlib backend (print(matplotlib.get_backend())): module://ipykernel.pylab.backend_inline
• Python version: 3.7.4
• Jupyter version (if applicable):
• Other libraries:

Installed from conda