Plot Pandas date times with matplotlib

plot_datetimes.py

"""
Most of the time, it’s pretty easy to take a Pandas data frame that contains
timestamps and plot it, for example using `df.plot(…)`. Nowadays many of
high-level Matplotlib functions are canny enough to handle Pandas timestamps on
their own as well.

But not all of them.

So how do you get nice handling of Pandas timestamps when you need to use
Matplotlib directly?
"""

from datetime import datetime
import matplotlib as mpl
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import pandas as pd

f, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(8, 2))

hb = plt.hexbin(
    mpl.dates.date2num(df.date.astype(datetime)),
    df.y,
)

ax.xaxis_date()

plt.show()