plotting irregular data

Hi all,

I have an observational dataset and I want to plot a simple xy plot with time dimension on x-axis (snippet copied below). The problem is that the time is irregular and discontinuous. For example the interval between two time steps varies, in the same way there is no data between 16:55:18 of the first day and 6:28:28 hours of the following day. I believed my best bet would have been time_axis_label function. Unfortunately that also does not work correctly for these kind of data or probably I don't know how to use it correctly this dataset although time_axis_label works fine for my wrfoutput.

What I want is to plot the data on the exact time (hour, minutes, second) on a monotonically increasing and equally spaced time stamp on x-axis. For example on x-axis want the time as "00 04 08 12 16 20 00 04 08 12 16 20 00". In excel its probably 5 minutes job. Unfortunately I don't know the right functions/method to do the same. Also there are no example available for such cases. I will greatly appreciate if somebody could help me in this.

Date(dd-mm-yy) Time(hh:mm:ss) AOT_1640
1/6/06 6:28:35 0.036782
1/6/06 6:34:59 0.036322
1/6/06 6:43:04 0.03453
1/6/06 6:52:34 0.03479
1/6/06 6:54:02 0.035196
1/6/06 6:55:50 0.033874
1/6/06 7:01:09 0.03577
1/6/06 7:07:15 0.034593
1/6/06 7:15:53 0.036877
1/6/06 7:21:05 0.036782
1/6/06 7:22:32 0.037556
1/6/06 7:31:56 0.038561
1/6/06 7:43:23 0.039798
1/6/06 7:57:24 0.040178
1/6/06 8:25:50 0.042576
1/6/06 8:56:23 0.049657
1/6/06 9:11:21 0.05025
1/6/06 9:26:23 0.05384
1/6/06 10:35:19 0.064918
1/6/06 10:56:21 0.065833
1/6/06 11:11:23 0.064025
1/6/06 12:26:27 0.056221
1/6/06 13:35:30 0.060246
1/6/06 13:56:24 0.08178
1/6/06 14:26:26 0.100734
1/6/06 14:35:29 0.092645
1/6/06 14:41:21 0.099116
1/6/06 15:26:23 0.118793
1/6/06 15:41:25 0.114984
1/6/06 15:56:21 0.120402
1/6/06 16:11:23 0.122496
1/6/06 16:26:24 0.148276
1/6/06 16:31:32 0.151355
1/6/06 16:55:18 0.165673
2/6/06 6:28:28 0.170047
2/6/06 6:34:51 0.17144
2/6/06 6:55:41 0.166282
2/6/06 7:01:02 0.163973
2/6/06 7:15:45 0.164671
2/6/06 7:20:53 0.166546
2/6/06 7:31:48 0.173329
2/6/06 7:43:15 0.164972
2/6/06 7:57:20 0.170174
2/6/06 8:35:15 0.159429
2/6/06 8:41:31 0.155072
2/6/06 8:56:31 0.166109
2/6/06 9:11:33 0.17149
2/6/06 9:26:31 0.163605
2/6/06 11:41:34 0.148113
2/6/06 13:41:33 0.189807
2/6/06 13:56:33 0.177184
2/6/06 14:11:35 0.170119
2/6/06 14:41:32 0.166909
2/6/06 15:41:33 0.187572
2/6/06 16:26:31 0.201749
2/6/06 16:55:42 0.208505
2/6/06 17:38:55 0.237899
2/6/06 17:57:21 0.261323
2/6/06 18:02:06 0.272931

Thanks and best regards,

----
Basit A. Khan, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Division of Physical Sciences & Engineering
Office# 3204, Level 3, Building 1,
King Abdullah University of Science & Technology
4700 King Abdullah Blvd, Box 2753, Thuwal 23955 –6900,
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Office: +966(0)2 808 0276,  Mobile: +966(0)5 0860 3617
E-mail: basitali.khan@kaust.edu.sa<mailto:basitali.khan@kaust.edu.sa>
Skype name: basit.a.khan

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Received on Tue Jun 5 03:28:46 2012