matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot_date

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

Plot coercing the axis to treat floats as dates.

Discouraged

This method exists for historic reasons and will be deprecated in the future.

• datetime-like data should directly be plotted using plot.
• If you need to plot plain numeric data as Matplotlib date format or need to set a timezone, call ax.xaxis.axis_date / ax.yaxis.axis_date before plot. See Axis.axis_date.

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

dataindexable object, optional

If given, the following parameters also accept a string s, which is interpreted as data[s] (unless this raises an exception):

x, y

**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
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	unknown
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).