Line plots with plot() in Pandas - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Line plots with plot()

📖 Scenario: You work as a data analyst for a small bakery. You have daily sales data for different types of bread over a week. You want to visualize how sales changed each day to understand trends.

🎯 Goal: Create a line plot using pandas plot() to show daily sales of different bread types over a week.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a pandas DataFrame with daily sales data for three bread types.

Set a variable for the days of the week.

Use the DataFrame's plot() method to create a line plot.

Display the plot using plt.show().

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Line plots help visualize trends over time, such as daily sales, temperature changes, or stock prices.

💼 Career

Data analysts and scientists use line plots to communicate patterns and insights clearly to teams and decision makers.

1

Create the sales data DataFrame

Import pandas as pd and create a DataFrame called sales_data with these exact columns and values: 'Sourdough' with [20, 22, 19, 24, 30, 28, 25], 'Baguette' with [15, 18, 14, 20, 22, 21, 19], and 'Rye' with [10, 12, 11, 13, 15, 14, 13].

Pandas

# Import pandas and create the sales_data DataFrame
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use pd.DataFrame() with a dictionary where keys are bread types and values are lists of sales numbers.

2

Add days of the week as index

Create a list called days with these exact values: ['Mon', 'Tue', 'Wed', 'Thu', 'Fri', 'Sat', 'Sun']. Then set this list as the index of the sales_data DataFrame.

Pandas

import pandas as pd

sales_data = pd.DataFrame({
    'Sourdough': [20, 22, 19, 24, 30, 28, 25],
    'Baguette': [15, 18, 14, 20, 22, 21, 19],
    'Rye': [10, 12, 11, 13, 15, 14, 13]
})

# Create the days list and set it as index of sales_data
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Assign the list days to sales_data.index to label rows by day.

3

Create the line plot

Import matplotlib.pyplot as plt. Use the plot() method on sales_data to create a line plot showing sales trends for each bread type.

Pandas

import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

sales_data = pd.DataFrame({
    'Sourdough': [20, 22, 19, 24, 30, 28, 25],
    'Baguette': [15, 18, 14, 20, 22, 21, 19],
    'Rye': [10, 12, 11, 13, 15, 14, 13]
})

days = ['Mon', 'Tue', 'Wed', 'Thu', 'Fri', 'Sat', 'Sun']
sales_data.index = days

# Use sales_data.plot() to create the line plot
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Call sales_data.plot() to create the line plot. Make sure to import matplotlib.pyplot as plt.

4

Display the plot

Use plt.show() to display the line plot you created.

Pandas

import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

sales_data = pd.DataFrame({
    'Sourdough': [20, 22, 19, 24, 30, 28, 25],
    'Baguette': [15, 18, 14, 20, 22, 21, 19],
    'Rye': [10, 12, 11, 13, 15, 14, 13]
})

days = ['Mon', 'Tue', 'Wed', 'Thu', 'Fri', 'Sat', 'Sun']
sales_data.index = days

sales_data.plot()

# Display the plot
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Call plt.show() after plotting to see the graph window.