title: Matplotlib: get and set axes position
body: <p>In matlab, it's straightforward to get and set the position of an existing axes on the figure:</p>
  
  <pre><code>  pos = get(gca(), 'position')
    set(gca(), 'position', pos)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>How do I do this in Matplotlib?</p>
  
  <p>I need this for two related reasons:</p>
  
  <p>These are the specific problems I'm trying to solve:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><p>I have a column of subplots where some have colorbars and some don't, and they aren't the same width i.e. the X axises don't align. The colorbar steals space from the axes. This also happens in matlab, and there I'd use the above trick to make all the axes equally wide by copying the width from an axes with a colorbar to those without.</p></li>
  <li><p>add space between individual subplots by shrinkin an axes. The adjust_subplots() function adjusts all subplots the same.</p></li>
  </ul>