(E)-Methyl 2-[(4-nitro-phen-yl)-hydrazono]-propanoate.

The title compound, C(10)H(11)N(3)O(4), is a condensation product of 4-nitro-phenyl-hydrazine and methyl pyruvate. The complete mol-ecule except for the methyl groups can be considered as a conjugated π system. All non-H atoms are approximately coplanar (r.m.s. deviation 0.117 Å). The crystal packing involves an N-H⋯O hydrogen bond and a π-π inter-action between the aromatic rings, with a centroid-centroid distance of 3.617 Å.