.. _pylab_examples-date_demo_convert:

pylab_examples example code: date_demo_convert.py
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.. plot:: /home/tcaswell/source/p/matplotlib/doc/mpl_examples/pylab_examples/date_demo_convert.py

::

    #!/usr/bin/env python
    
    import datetime
    import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
    from matplotlib.dates import DayLocator, HourLocator, DateFormatter, drange
    from numpy import arange
    
    date1 = datetime.datetime(2000, 3, 2)
    date2 = datetime.datetime(2000, 3, 6)
    delta = datetime.timedelta(hours=6)
    dates = drange(date1, date2, delta)
    
    y = arange(len(dates)*1.0)
    
    fig, ax = plt.subplots()
    ax.plot_date(dates, y*y)
    
    # this is superfluous, since the autoscaler should get it right, but
    # use date2num and num2date to convert between dates and floats if
    # you want; both date2num and num2date convert an instance or sequence
    ax.set_xlim(dates[0], dates[-1])
    
    # The hour locator takes the hour or sequence of hours you want to
    # tick, not the base multiple
    
    ax.xaxis.set_major_locator(DayLocator())
    ax.xaxis.set_minor_locator(HourLocator(arange(0, 25, 6)))
    ax.xaxis.set_major_formatter(DateFormatter('%Y-%m-%d'))
    
    ax.fmt_xdata = DateFormatter('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')
    fig.autofmt_xdate()
    
    plt.show()
    

Keywords: python, matplotlib, pylab, example, codex (see :ref:`how-to-search-examples`)