Plot pandas dataframe with defined ticks (conversion to datetime)

Question

I want to plot a pandas dateframe with defined ticks.

As it can be seen in the plot the time distance between ticks is 8 minutes and 20 seconds. I would like to have this in 5 Minute steps.

The data is a dataframe with the following structure:

                           Data1      Data2       
timestamps                                                                                                                       
0 days 00:00:00         36.59338  36.465206  
0 days 00:00:00.100000  36.59338  36.465206  
0 days 00:00:00.200000  36.59338  36.465206  
0 days 00:00:00.300000  36.59338  36.465206  
0 days 00:00:00.400000  36.59338  36.465206  

How can I control the step size of the ticks in the example?

The code:

df.plot(color=colors); 

Leads to the above Picture.

Answer 1

df.plot() fortunately returns a matplotlib.AxesSubplot so you can change paramaters as you would usually do. Also, to properly define datetime xticks, you should use the matplotlib.dates package.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.dates as md
ax = df.plot(color=colors)
min_time = df.index.minute.min
max_time = df.index.minute.max
time_int = 5
xlocator = md.MinuteLocator(byminute=np.arange(min_time, max_time+1, time_int), interval = 1)
ax.xaxis.set_major_locator(xlocator)