Date tick locators and formatters#

This example illustrates the usage and effect of the various date locators and formatters.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

from matplotlib.dates import (FR, MO, MONTHLY, SA, SU, TH, TU, WE,
                              AutoDateFormatter, AutoDateLocator,
                              ConciseDateFormatter, DateFormatter, DayLocator,
                              HourLocator, MicrosecondLocator, MinuteLocator,
                              MonthLocator, RRuleLocator, SecondLocator,
                              WeekdayLocator, YearLocator, rrulewrapper)
import matplotlib.ticker as ticker

locators = [
    ('AutoDateLocator(maxticks=8)', '2003-02-01', '%Y-%m'),
    ('YearLocator(month=4)', '2003-02-01', '%Y-%m'),
    ('MonthLocator(bymonth=[4,8,12])', '2003-02-01', '%Y-%m'),
    ('DayLocator(interval=180)', '2003-02-01', '%Y-%m-%d'),
    ('WeekdayLocator(byweekday=SU, interval=4)', '2000-07-01', '%a %Y-%m-%d'),
    ('HourLocator(byhour=range(0,24,6))', '2000-02-04', '%H h'),
    ('MinuteLocator(interval=15)', '2000-02-01 02:00', '%H:%M'),
    ('SecondLocator(bysecond=(0,30))', '2000-02-01 00:02', '%H:%M:%S'),
    ('MicrosecondLocator(interval=1000)', '2000-02-01 00:00:00.005', '%S.%f'),
    ('RRuleLocator(rrulewrapper(freq=MONTHLY, \nbyweekday=(MO, TU, WE, TH,' +
     ' FR), bysetpos=-1))', '2000-07-01', '%Y-%m-%d')
]

formatters = [
    ('AutoDateFormatter(ax.xaxis.get_major_locator())'),
    ('ConciseDateFormatter(ax.xaxis.get_major_locator())'),
    ('DateFormatter("%b %Y")')
]


def plot_axis(ax, locator=None, xmax='2002-02-01', fmt=None, formatter=None):
    """Set up common parameters for the Axes in the example."""
    ax.spines.right.set_visible(False)
    ax.spines.left.set_visible(False)
    ax.spines.top.set_visible(False)
    ax.yaxis.set_major_locator(ticker.NullLocator())
    ax.tick_params(which='major', width=1.00, length=5)
    ax.tick_params(which='minor', width=0.75, length=2.5)
    ax.set_xlim(np.datetime64('2000-02-01'), np.datetime64(xmax))
    if locator:
        ax.xaxis.set_major_locator(eval(locator))
        ax.xaxis.set_major_formatter(DateFormatter(fmt))
    else:
        ax.xaxis.set_major_formatter(eval(formatter))
    ax.text(0.0, 0.2, locator or formatter, transform=ax.transAxes,
            fontsize=14, fontname='Monospace', color='tab:blue')


fig, ax = plt.subplots(len(locators), 1, figsize=(8, len(locators) * .8),
                       layout='constrained')
fig.suptitle('Date Locators')
for i, loc in enumerate(locators):
    plot_axis(ax[i], *loc)

fig, ax = plt.subplots(len(formatters), 1, figsize=(8, len(formatters) * .8),
                       layout='constrained')
fig.suptitle('Date Formatters')
for i, fmt in enumerate(formatters):
    plot_axis(ax[i], formatter=fmt)

References

The use of the following functions, methods, classes and modules is shown in this example:

Total running time of the script: ( 0 minutes 3.695 seconds)

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