To show date and time on the X-axis in Matplotlib, we can take the following steps −
- Set the figure size and adjust the padding between and around the subplots.
- Create a list of dates and y values.
- Get the current axis.
- Set the major date formatter and locator.
- Plot x and y values using plot() method.
- To display the figure, use show() method.
Example
from datetime import datetime as dt
from matplotlib import pyplot as plt, dates as mdates
plt.rcParams["figure.figsize"] = [7.50, 3.50]
plt.rcParams["figure.autolayout"] = True
dates = ["01/02/2020", "01/03/2020", "01/04/2020"]
x_values = [dt.strptime(d, "%m/%d/%Y").date() for d in dates]
y_values = [1, 2, 3]
ax = plt.gca()
formatter = mdates.DateFormatter("%Y-%m-%d")
ax.xaxis.set_major_formatter(formatter)
locator = mdates.DayLocator()
ax.xaxis.set_major_locator(locator)
plt.plot(x_values, y_values)
plt.show()Output
