matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot_date

Axes.plot_date(ax, *args, **kwargs)

A plot with data that contains dates.

Similar to the plot() command, except the x or y (or both) data is considered to be dates, and the axis is labeled accordingly.

x and/or y can be a sequence of dates represented as float days since 0001-01-01 UTC.

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

Parameters:

fmt : string

The plot format string.

tz : [ None | timezone string | tzinfo instance]

The time zone to use in labeling dates. If None, defaults to rc value.

xdate : boolean

If True, the x-axis will be labeled with dates.

ydate : boolean

If True, the y-axis will be labeled with dates.

Returns:

lines

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	float (0.0 transparent through 1.0 opaque)
animated	bool
antialiased or aa	[True | False]
clip_box	a Bbox instance
clip_on	bool
clip_path	[(Path, Transform) | Patch | None]
color or c	any matplotlib color
contains	a callable function
dash_capstyle	[‘butt’ | ‘round’ | ‘projecting’]
dash_joinstyle	[‘miter’ | ‘round’ | ‘bevel’]
dashes	sequence of on/off ink in points
drawstyle	[‘default’ | ‘steps’ | ‘steps-pre’ | ‘steps-mid’ | ‘steps-post’]
figure	a Figure instance
fillstyle	[‘full’ | ‘left’ | ‘right’ | ‘bottom’ | ‘top’ | ‘none’]
gid	an id string
label	object
linestyle or ls	[‘solid’ | ‘dashed’, ‘dashdot’, ‘dotted’ | (offset, on-off-dash-seq) | '-' | '--' | '-.' | ':' | 'None' | ' ' | '']
linewidth or lw	float value in points
marker	A valid marker style
markeredgecolor or mec	any matplotlib color
markeredgewidth or mew	float value in points
markerfacecolor or mfc	any matplotlib color
markerfacecoloralt or mfcalt	any matplotlib color
markersize or ms	float
markevery	[None | int | length-2 tuple of int | slice | list/array of int | float | length-2 tuple of float]
path_effects	AbstractPathEffect
picker	float distance in points or callable pick function fn(artist, event)
pickradius	float distance in points
rasterized	bool or None
sketch_params	(scale: float, length: float, randomness: float)
snap	bool or None
solid_capstyle	[‘butt’ | ‘round’ | ‘projecting’]
solid_joinstyle	[‘miter’ | ‘round’ | ‘bevel’]
transform	a matplotlib.transforms.Transform instance
url	a url string
visible	bool
xdata	1D array
ydata	1D array
zorder	float

.. 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 are replaced by data[<arg>]:

• All arguments with the following names: ‘x’, ‘y’.

See also

matplotlib.dates

helper functions on dates

matplotlib.dates.date2num

how to convert dates to num

matplotlib.dates.num2date

how to convert num to dates

matplotlib.dates.drange

how floating point dates