.. only:: html .. note:: :class: sphx-glr-download-link-note Click :ref:`here ` to download the full example code .. rst-class:: sphx-glr-example-title .. _sphx_glr_gallery_text_labels_and_annotations_date.py: ================ Date tick labels ================ Show how to make date plots in Matplotlib using date tick locators and formatters. See :doc:`/gallery/ticks_and_spines/major_minor_demo` for more information on controlling major and minor ticks. All Matplotlib date plotting is done by converting date instances into days since 0001-01-01 00:00:00 UTC plus one day (for historical reasons). The conversion, tick locating and formatting is done behind the scenes so this is most transparent to you. The :mod:`matplotlib.dates` module provides the converter functions `.date2num` and `.num2date`, which convert `datetime.datetime` and `numpy.datetime64` objects to and from Matplotlib's internal representation. .. image:: /gallery/text_labels_and_annotations/images/sphx_glr_date_001.png :alt: date :class: sphx-glr-single-img .. code-block:: default import numpy as np import matplotlib.pyplot as plt import matplotlib.dates as mdates import matplotlib.cbook as cbook years = mdates.YearLocator() # every year months = mdates.MonthLocator() # every month years_fmt = mdates.DateFormatter('%Y') # Load a numpy structured array from yahoo csv data with fields date, open, # close, volume, adj_close from the mpl-data/example directory. This array # stores the date as an np.datetime64 with a day unit ('D') in the 'date' # column. data = cbook.get_sample_data('goog.npz', np_load=True)['price_data'] fig, ax = plt.subplots() ax.plot('date', 'adj_close', data=data) # format the ticks ax.xaxis.set_major_locator(years) ax.xaxis.set_major_formatter(years_fmt) ax.xaxis.set_minor_locator(months) # round to nearest years. datemin = np.datetime64(data['date'][0], 'Y') datemax = np.datetime64(data['date'][-1], 'Y') + np.timedelta64(1, 'Y') ax.set_xlim(datemin, datemax) # format the coords message box ax.format_xdata = mdates.DateFormatter('%Y-%m-%d') ax.format_ydata = lambda x: '$%1.2f' % x # format the price. ax.grid(True) # rotates and right aligns the x labels, and moves the bottom of the # axes up to make room for them fig.autofmt_xdate() plt.show() .. _sphx_glr_download_gallery_text_labels_and_annotations_date.py: .. only :: html .. container:: sphx-glr-footer :class: sphx-glr-footer-example .. container:: sphx-glr-download sphx-glr-download-python :download:`Download Python source code: date.py ` .. container:: sphx-glr-download sphx-glr-download-jupyter :download:`Download Jupyter notebook: date.ipynb ` .. only:: html .. rst-class:: sphx-glr-signature Keywords: matplotlib code example, codex, python plot, pyplot `Gallery generated by Sphinx-Gallery `_