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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


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[['left', 'right', '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')

Date tick locators

locators = [
    # locator as str, xmax, fmt
    ('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'),
]

fig, axs = plt.subplots(len(locators), 1, figsize=(8, len(locators) * .8),
                        layout='constrained')
fig.suptitle('Date Locators')
for ax, (locator, xmax, fmt) in zip(axs, locators):
    plot_axis(ax, locator, xmax, fmt)
Date Locators

Date formatters

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

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

References

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

Total running time of the script: (0 minutes 1.750 seconds)

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