Re: [Matplotlib-users] Auto locator for dates?

[John H. <jdh...@ac...>]

>>>>> "Joe" == Joe Wu <jw...@sd...> writes:

    Joe> Sorry if this question has been asked before: Has anyone
    Joe> written a locator class which acts like the AutoLocator but
    Joe> picks the best DateLocator based on current time span?

    Joe> For date plots, zooming in/out can yield no tick marks or too
    Joe> many tick marks, and I think using such a class can solve
    Joe> this problem.  Any suggestion for other approach?

Take a look at Axes.plot_date.  It inspects the date range and tries
to pick a good locator and formatter.  You could wrap this
functionality into an AutoDateLocator, following the model of
AutoLocator.

There is a slight wrinkle here in that you want an AutoDateFormatter
as well, but this shouldn't be any harder.  Again you can reuse the
logic of plot_date to pick the right format string dynamically.


If you succeed, please send it my way and I'll use it in plot_date.


JDH