plot x-axis as date in matplotlib

Question

I am trying to perform some analysis on data. I got csv file and I convert it into pandas dataframe. the data looks like this. Its has several columns, but I am trying to dr

Answer 1

Set the index to the datetime series

If you set the index to the datetime series matplotlib will handle the x axis for you. Here is a minimal example of how you might deal with this visualization.

Simple example:

import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

date_time = ["2011-09-01", "2011-08-01", "2011-07-01", "2011-06-01", "2011-05-01"]
date_time = pd.to_datetime(date_time)
temp = [2, 4, 6, 4, 6]

DF = pd.DataFrame()
DF['temp'] = temp
DF = DF.set_index(date_time)

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
fig.subplots_adjust(bottom=0.3)
plt.xticks(rotation=90)
plt.plot(DF)

This will yield a plot that looks like the following:

Setting the index makes things easier

The important note is that setting the DataFrame index to the datetime series allows matplotlib to deal with x axis on time series data without much help.

Follow this link for detailed explanation on spacing axis ticks (specifically dates)