How can I hide data gaps in plotly?

Question

I have datasets that may include large gaps in data, and I want to chart the data without plotly automatically filling in the gaps with blank space.

Example Chart from my app:

Data:

+------------+-----------+------------+
|    date    | responses | percentage |
+------------+-----------+------------+
| 2017-02-13 |         4 |     0.6296 |
| 2017-02-14 |         1 |     0.7963 |
| 2017-02-15 |         4 |     0.7315 |
| 2017-02-16 |         2 |     0.4213 |
| 2017-03-02 |         1 |     0.8611 |
| 2017-03-03 |         1 |     0.8148 |
| 2017-03-04 |         2 |     0.4444 |
+------------+-----------+------------+

Alternate Example JSFiddle: https://jsfiddle.net/4h922ca9/

Plotly Graph Maker Example: https://plot.ly/create/?fid=douglas.gaskell:3

How can I achieve this?

Edit: To clarify, I am not trying to fill in the gap with a line or bar. I don't want the gap to exist at all.

Answer 1

Use this in your config.

connectgaps: true

I actually tried this out by viewing the python version of this library.

Plotly :: Python Docs :: Line Charts :: Connect Data Gaps

var rawData = [
  {date: new Date(2017, 01, 10), value: 5},
  {date: new Date(2017, 01, 11), value: 6},
  {date: new Date(2017, 01, 12), value: 8},
  {date: new Date(2017, 01, 13), value: 13},
  {date: new Date(2017, 01, 14), value: null}, //Null to avoid plotting the line over the gap
  {date: new Date(2017, 01, 20), value: 12},
  {date: new Date(2017, 01, 21), value: 14},
  {date: new Date(2017, 01, 22), value: 8},
  {date: new Date(2017, 01, 23), value: 9},
  {date: new Date(2017, 01, 24), value: 11},
  {date: new Date(2017, 01, 25), value: 8},
  {date: new Date(2017, 01, 26), value: 6},
  {date: new Date(2017, 01, 27), value: 7}
];

let trace1 = {
  name: 'values',
  type: 'scatter',
  mode: 'lines+markers',
  x: getData(rawData, 'date'),
  y: getData(rawData, 'value'),
  connectgaps: true             // <-- HERE
}

Plotly.newPlot('myChart', [trace1]);

function getData(input, propName) {
  let output = [];

  for (let i = 0; i < input.length; i++) {
    output.push(input[i][propName]);
  }
  return output;
}

<script src="https://cdn.plot.ly/plotly-latest.min.js"></script>
<div id="myChart"></div>

---

Edit

I guess the best way to approach this it to treat the x-axis like a category axis.

var rawData = [
  { date: '2017-02-10', value:  5 },
  { date: '2017-02-11', value:  6 },
  { date: '2017-02-12', value:  8 },
  { date: '2017-02-13', value: 13 },
  { date: '2017-02-20', value: 12 },
  { date: '2017-02-21', value: 14 },
  { date: '2017-02-22', value:  8 },
  { date: '2017-02-23', value:  9 },
  { date: '2017-02-24', value: 11 },
  { date: '2017-02-25', value:  8 },
  { date: '2017-02-26', value:  6 },
  { date: '2017-02-27', value:  7 }
];

let trace1 = {
  name: 'values',
  type: 'scatter',
  mode: 'lines+markers',
  x: getData(rawData, 'date').map((d, i) => i),
  y: getData(rawData, 'value'),
}

let layout = {
  xaxis: {
    title: 'Date',
    tickvals: getData(rawData, 'date').map((d, i) => i).filter(filterEven),
    ticktext: getData(rawData, 'date').map(d => moment(d).format('MMM DD')).filter(filterEven)
  }
}

Plotly.newPlot('myChart', [trace1], layout);

function filterEven(v, i) { return i % 2 === 0; }
function getData(input, prop) { return input.map(v => v[prop]); }

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/moment.js/2.17.1/moment.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdn.plot.ly/plotly-latest.min.js"></script>
<div id="myChart"></div>