matplotlib.pyplot.plot_date

matplotlib.pyplot.plot_date(x, y, fmt='o', tz=None, xdate=True, ydate=False, *, data=None, **kwargs) [source]

Plot co-ercing the axis to treat floats as dates.

Similar to plot, this plots y vs. x as lines or markers. However, the axis labels are formatted as dates depending on xdate and ydate. Note that plot will work with datetime and numpy.datetime64 objects without resorting to this method.

Parameters:	x, yarray-like The coordinates of the data points. If xdate or ydate is True, the respective values x or y are interpreted as Matplotlib dates. fmtstr, optional The plot format string. For details, see the corresponding parameter in plot. tztimezone string or datetime.tzinfo, default: rcParams["timezone"] (default: 'UTC') The time zone to use in labeling dates. xdatebool, default: True If True, the x-axis will be interpreted as Matplotlib dates. ydatebool, default: False If True, the y-axis will be interpreted as Matplotlib dates.
Returns:	list of Line2D Objects representing the plotted data.
Other Parameters:	**kwargs Keyword arguments control the Line2D properties: Property Description agg_filter a filter function, which takes a (m, n, 3) float array and a dpi value, and returns a (m, n, 3) array alpha scalar or None animated bool antialiased or aa bool clip_box Bbox clip_on bool clip_path Patch or (Path, Transform) or None color or c color contains unknown dash_capstyle CapStyle or {'butt', 'projecting', 'round'} dash_joinstyle JoinStyle or {'miter', 'round', 'bevel'} dashes sequence of floats (on/off ink in points) or (None, None) data (2, N) array or two 1D arrays drawstyle or ds {'default', 'steps', 'steps-pre', 'steps-mid', 'steps-post'}, default: 'default' figure Figure fillstyle {'full', 'left', 'right', 'bottom', 'top', 'none'} gid str in_layout bool label object linestyle or ls {'-', '--', '-.', ':', '', (offset, on-off-seq), ...} linewidth or lw float marker marker style string, Path or MarkerStyle markeredgecolor or mec color markeredgewidth or mew float markerfacecolor or mfc color markerfacecoloralt or mfcalt color markersize or ms float markevery None or int or (int, int) or slice or list[int] or float or (float, float) or list[bool] path_effects AbstractPathEffect picker float or callable[[Artist, Event], tuple[bool, dict]] pickradius float rasterized bool sketch_params (scale: float, length: float, randomness: float) snap bool or None solid_capstyle CapStyle or {'butt', 'projecting', 'round'} solid_joinstyle JoinStyle or {'miter', 'round', 'bevel'} transform matplotlib.transforms.Transform url str visible bool xdata 1D array ydata 1D array zorder float

See also

matplotlib.dates

Helper functions on dates.

matplotlib.dates.date2num

Convert dates to num.

matplotlib.dates.num2date

Convert num to dates.

matplotlib.dates.drange

Create an equally spaced sequence of dates.

Notes

If you are using custom date tickers and formatters, it may be necessary to set the formatters/locators after the call to plot_date. plot_date will set the default tick locator to AutoDateLocator (if the tick locator is not already set to a DateLocator instance) and the default tick formatter to AutoDateFormatter (if the tick formatter is not already set to a DateFormatter instance).

Note

In addition to the above described arguments, this function can take a data keyword argument. If such a data argument is given, the following arguments can also be string s, which is interpreted as data[s] (unless this raises an exception): x, y.

Objects passed as data must support item access (data[s]) and membership test (s in data).

Examples using matplotlib.pyplot.plot_date