Quick Gantt Chart with Matplotlib

The problem: You need a quick Gantt chart for a quick proposal report and you dint have any project planner software installed.

Solution:

While there are many different ways, you only have access to python, well Here’s a simple Gantt chart plotter with just matplotlib.

Not for rigorous use but a good substitute to make quick Gantt plot for quick report.

"""
GANTT Chart with Matplotlib
Sukhbinder
Inspired from
Gantt Charts in Matplotlib

"""
import datetime as dt
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.font_manager as font_manager
import matplotlib.dates
from matplotlib.dates import WEEKLY,MONTHLY, DateFormatter, rrulewrapper, RRuleLocator 
import numpy as np
 

def _create_date(datetxt):
    """Creates the date"""
    day,month,year=datetxt.split('-')
    date = dt.datetime(int(year), int(month), int(day))
    mdate = matplotlib.dates.date2num(date) 
    return mdate

def CreateGanttChart(fname):
    """
        Create gantt charts with matplotlib
        Give file name.
    """  
    ylabels = []
    customDates = []
    try:
        textlist=open(fname).readlines()
    except:
        return
#
    for tx in textlist:
        if not tx.startswith('#'):
            ylabel,startdate,enddate=tx.split(',')
            ylabels.append(ylabel.replace('\n',''))
            customDates.append([_create_date(startdate.replace('\n','')),_create_date(enddate.replace('\n',''))])
            
    ilen=len(ylabels)
    pos = np.arange(0.5,ilen*0.5+0.5,0.5)
    task_dates = {}
    for i,task in enumerate(ylabels):
        task_dates[task] = customDates[i]
    fig = plt.figure(figsize=(20,8))
    ax = fig.add_subplot(111)
    for i in range(len(ylabels)):
         start_date,end_date = task_dates[ylabels[i]]
         ax.barh((i*0.5)+0.5, end_date - start_date, left=start_date, height=0.3, align='center', edgecolor='lightgreen', color='orange', alpha = 0.8)
    locsy, labelsy = plt.yticks(pos,ylabels)
    plt.setp(labelsy, fontsize = 14)
#    ax.axis('tight')
    ax.set_ylim(ymin = -0.1, ymax = ilen*0.5+0.5)
    ax.grid(color = 'g', linestyle = ':')
    ax.xaxis_date()
    rule = rrulewrapper(WEEKLY, interval=1)
    loc = RRuleLocator(rule)
    #formatter = DateFormatter("%d-%b '%y")
    formatter = DateFormatter("%d-%b")
 
    ax.xaxis.set_major_locator(loc)
    ax.xaxis.set_major_formatter(formatter)
    labelsx = ax.get_xticklabels()
    plt.setp(labelsx, rotation=30, fontsize=10)

    font = font_manager.FontProperties(size='small')
    ax.legend(loc=1,prop=font)

    ax.invert_yaxis()
    fig.autofmt_xdate()
    plt.savefig('gantt.svg')
    plt.show()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    fname=r"projectChart.txt"
    CreateGanttChart(fname)

Example of the project text file used by the above program is

Requirements/Design,04-01-2016,26-02-2016
Development,20-02-2016,27-03-2016
Test Planning,27-03-2016,3-04-2016
Testing,30-03-2016,30-04-2016
Bug Fixes,08-04-2016,15-05-2016
Documentation,15-04-2016,08-05-2016
Deployment,15-05-2016,25-05-2016
Final Report,8-05-2016,25-06-2016