Scatter plot form dataframe with index on x-axis

Question

I've got pandas DataFrame, df, with index named date and the columns columnA, columnB and columnC

I am trying to scatter plot index on a x-axis and columnA on a y-axis using the DataFrame syntax.

When I try:

df.plot(kind='scatter', x='date', y='columnA')

I ma getting an error KeyError: 'date' probably because the date is not column

df.plot(kind='scatter', y='columnA')

I am getting an error:

ValueError: scatter requires and x and y column

so no default index on x-axis.

df.plot(kind='scatter', x=df.index, y='columnA')

I am getting error

KeyError: "DatetimeIndex(['1818-01-01', '1818-01-02', '1818-01-03', '1818-01-04',\n
                          '1818-01-05', '1818-01-06', '1818-01-07', '1818-01-08',\n
                          '1818-01-09', '1818-01-10',\n               ...\n  
                          '2018-03-22', '2018-03-23', '2018-03-24', '2018-03-25',\n
                          '2018-03-26', '2018-03-27', '2018-03-28', '2018-03-29',\n 
                          '2018-03-30', '2018-03-31'],\n  
dtype='datetime64[ns]', name='date', length=73139, freq=None) not in index"

---

I can plot it if I use matplotlib.pyplot directly

plt.scatter(df.index, df['columnA'])

Is there a way to plot index as x-axis using the DataFrame kind syntax?

Answer 1

This is kind of ugly (I think the matplotlib solution you used in your question is better, FWIW), but you can always create a temporary DataFrame with the index as a column usinng

df.reset_index()

If the index was nameless, the default name will be 'index'. Assuming this is the case, you could use

df.reset_index().plot(kind='scatter', x='index', y='columnA')

Answer 2

A more simple solution would be:

df['x1'] = df.index

df.plot(kind='scatter', x='x1', y='columnA')

Just create the index variable outside of the plot statement.

Answer 3

At least in pandas>1.4 whats easiest is this:

df['columnA'].plot(style=".")

This lets you mix scatter and line plots, as well as use the standard pandas plot interface