plot_date: Set the default fmt to 'o'

Different to just plot() plot_date() has a default plot format string
which makes it necessary to *unset* the default one when drawing
multiple sequences of dates in a figure to get a working color cycling.
It also was not exactly clear that Axes.set_color_cycle was setting the
color cycle for every plot command except for plot_date ones.

It was of course possible to simply unset it after reading the
documentation but that's not the path of least suprise.

The default fmt of 'o' will keep the markers by default (which makes
sense for dates) but allows color cycling to happen.

This is related to issue matplotlib#2148

Author: mineo

doc/api/api_changes.rst

@@ -107,6 +107,9 @@ original location:
   does the exact same thing as `FormatStrFormatter`, but for new-style
   formatting strings.
 
+* The ``fmt`` argument of :meth:`~matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot_date` has been
+  changed from ``bo`` to just ``o``, so color cycling can happen by default.
+
 .. _changes_in_1_3:
 
 

lib/matplotlib/axes/_axes.py

@@ -1337,7 +1337,7 @@ def plot(self, *args, **kwargs):
         return lines
 
     @docstring.dedent_interpd
-    def plot_date(self, x, y, fmt='bo', tz=None, xdate=True, ydate=False,
+    def plot_date(self, x, y, fmt='o', tz=None, xdate=True, ydate=False,
                   **kwargs):
         """
         Plot with data with dates.

lib/matplotlib/pyplot.py

@@ -3066,7 +3066,7 @@ def plot(*args, **kwargs):
 # This function was autogenerated by boilerplate.py.  Do not edit as
 # changes will be lost
 @_autogen_docstring(Axes.plot_date)
-def plot_date(x, y, fmt='bo', tz=None, xdate=True, ydate=False, hold=None,
+def plot_date(x, y, fmt='o', tz=None, xdate=True, ydate=False, hold=None,
               **kwargs):
     ax = gca()
     # allow callers to override the hold state by passing hold=True|False