Time Cartesian Axis

The time scale is used to display times and dates. Data are spread according to the amount of time between data points. When building its ticks, it will automatically calculate the most comfortable unit base on the size of the scale.

Date Adapters

The time scale requires both a date library and a corresponding adapter to be present. Please choose from the available adapters (opens new window).

Data Sets

Input Data

See data structures.

Date Formats

When providing data for the time scale, Chart.js uses timestamps defined as milliseconds since the epoch (midnight January 1, 1970, UTC) internally. However, Chart.js also supports all of the formats that your chosen date adapter accepts. You should use timestamps if you’d like to set parsing: false for better performance.

Configuration Options

Time Axis specific options

Namespace: options.scales[scaleId]

Common options to all cartesian axes

Namespace: options.scales[scaleId]

Common options to all axes

Namespace: options.scales[scaleId]

Time Units

The following time measurements are supported. The names can be passed as strings to the time.unit config option to force a certain unit.

• 'millisecond'
• 'second'
• 'minute'
• 'hour'
• 'day'
• 'week'
• 'month'
• 'quarter'
• 'year'

For example, to create a chart with a time scale that always displayed units per month, the following config could be used.

var chart = new Chart(ctx, {
    type: 'line',
    data: data,
    options: {
        scales: {
            x: {
                type: 'time',
                time: {
                    unit: 'month'
                }
            }
        }
    }
});

Display Formats

You may specify a map of display formats with a key for each unit:

• millisecond
• second
• minute
• hour
• day
• week
• month
• quarter
• year

The format string used as a value depends on the date adapter you chose to use.

For example, to set the display format for the quarter unit to show the month and year, the following config might be passed to the chart constructor.

var chart = new Chart(ctx, {
    type: 'line',
    data: data,
    options: {
        scales: {
            x: {
                type: 'time',
                time: {
                    displayFormats: {
                        quarter: 'MMM YYYY'
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
});

Ticks Source

The ticks.source property controls the ticks generation.

• 'auto': generates “optimal” ticks based on scale size and time options
• 'data': generates ticks from data (including labels from data {x|y} objects)
• 'labels': generates ticks from user given labels ONLY

Parser

If this property is defined as a string, it is interpreted as a custom format to be used by the date adapter to parse the date.

If this is a function, it must return a type that can be handled by your date adapter’s parse method.

Internal data format

Internally time scale uses milliseconds since epoch