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{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"DiscussionForumPosting","headline":"Cannot use a timedelta Rectangle width with a datetime axis","articleBody":"I would like to draw a rectangle to represent the weekend on a plot whose x-axis is time. In an IPython Notebook:\n\n```\n%pylab inline\ndt = datetime.datetime\ndates = [\n    dt(2015, 1, 1),\n    dt(2015, 1, 2),\n    dt(2015, 1, 3),\n    dt(2015, 1, 4),\n    dt(2015, 1, 5),\n    ]\ndata = [56.0, 53.2, 57.8, 59.1, 55.5]\ngca().add_patch(Rectangle(\n    xy=(dt(2015, 1, 3), 50.0),\n    width=datetime.timedelta(days=2), \n    height=1.0,\n    ))\nplot(dates, data)\n```\n\nThe big problem is that the above code dies with an exception.\n\n```\nAttributeError                            Traceback (most recent call last)\n\u003cipython-input-13-b4545adc3ff2\u003e in \u003cmodule\u003e()\n     12     xy=(dt(2015, 1, 3), 50.0),\n     13     width=datetime.timedelta(days=2),\n---\u003e 14     height=1.0,\n     15     ))\n     16 plot(dates, data)\n\n...\n\n/home/brhodes/.v/misc/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/dates.pyc in _to_ordinalf(dt)\n    202             dt -= delta\n    203 \n--\u003e 204     base = float(dt.toordinal())\n    205     if hasattr(dt, 'hour'):\n    206         base += (dt.hour / HOURS_PER_DAY + dt.minute / MINUTES_PER_DAY +\n\nAttributeError: 'datetime.timedelta' object has no attribute 'toordinal'\n```\n\nThe other problem is that my backup plan, of replacing the `timedelta()` with the floating-point value 2.0, destroys the date-ness of the `x` axis. It reverts to being a float that does not display as a date.\n\nWhy is a `timedelta` not a valid increment or offset with which I can express width along a datetime x-axis?\n\nThanks for any help you can provide!\n","author":{"url":"https://github.com/brandon-rhodes","@type":"Person","name":"brandon-rhodes"},"datePublished":"2015-08-13T20:15:20.000Z","interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":"https://schema.org/CommentAction","userInteractionCount":5},"url":"https://github.com/4916/matplotlib/issues/4916"}