# `plot_date`

Use of `plot_date` has been discouraged since Matplotlib 3.5 and
deprecated since 3.9. The `plot_date` function has now been removed.

-   `datetime`-like data should directly be plotted using
    [\~.Axes.plot]{.title-ref}.
-   If you need to plot plain numeric data as
    `date-format`{.interpreted-text role="ref"} or need to set a
    timezone, call `ax.xaxis.axis_date` / `ax.yaxis.axis_date` before
    [\~.Axes.plot]{.title-ref}. See [.Axis.axis_date]{.title-ref}.