plotly / plotly/plotly.py

px.timeline Incorrectly interprets x_end datetimes

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bug P3
Dominant language
Python
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Description

The px.timeline function incorrectly generates the end times of the bar traces. The end times are placed before the start times.

Python version 3.8.6
Plotly version 5.4

Steps to reproduce:

import datetime
import plotly.express as px
t0 = datetime.datetime.now()
tf = t0 + datetime.timedelta(hours=1)
px.timeline(x_start=[t0], x_end=[tf])

print(t0)
print(tf)

Produces

2021-11-16 12:21:14.800827  # t0
2021-11-16 13:21:14.800827  # tf

The resulting figure is below. Notice that the right edge of the bar is the same as the start time, but the left edge of the bar is something else entirely.
px_timeline_error

The behavior is the same when passing a dataframe and column names. If you generate a scatter plot using the same datetime objects, the output works as expected (shown below).

correct_scatter

Contributor guide

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First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
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  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start at the px.timeline entry point and reproduce the issue with the datetime values shown in the report, comparing its bar trace coordinates with a scatter plot using the same values. Trace how x_start and x_end are converted into the figure, then verify that the generated bar has the expected start and end times and that the dataframe-and-column-names case also behaves correctly.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
python
Domain
data-visualization
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Clearly specified
Newbie friendliness
45/100

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