Can figure numbers be re-assigned?

Is it possible to re-assign a figure number , for example if I have a Figure 55 open, can I make it Figure 2 as long as I don't already have a Figure 2 open? If so how do I do this?

I have a routine that generates 60+ figures, and I delete all but 3 interesting ones. I would like to make them Figures 1,2,3 because I need to re-run the routine and generate another set of figures, and I'd like the first set to appear together in the figure order (it makes them easier to keep track of).

[Matt J]

No perfect solutions yet, unfortunately. I really hope TMW implements this capability. It seems like such a basic thing to want to do.

Answer 1

[José-Luis]

To get a list of all the existing figures:

 get(0,'Children');

If figure two does not exist and you want to copy figure(55):

 figure(2)
 copyobj(allchild(55),2);

Get rid of figure(55):

 clf(55);

And to answer your question directly. I believe once a figure number is set, you have to live with it. But there are workarounds, such as the one above.

[K E]

Perfect. Here is how I modified your code to automatically reassign all open figure numbers - I know that's not what my question asked, but perhaps it will help someone else.

% Get a list of all existing figures
figList = sort(get(0,'Children'));

for iOld = 1:length(figList)
    figOld = figList(iOld); % This is a figure to replace

      % Used later to make sure size of figure is correct
      posOld = get(figOld, 'pos'); 
      figNew = figure; % Make new figure
      % Used later to make figure appear at  
      % default horizontal position on screen
      posNew = get(figNew, 'pos'); 
      % Copy over lines (but not formatting)
      copyobj(allchild(figList(iOld)),figNew); 
      % Reproduce figure name and size however don't move it horizontally
      set(figNew, 'Name', get(figOld, 'Name'), ...
          'pos', [posNew(1:2) posOld(3:4)]);

      % Get rid of old figure
      close(figList(iOld));
  end

Answer 2

[Joseph Cheng]

This maybe a bit hard to implemented based on how you're selecting the 3 interesting ones but the function copyobj() will do the trick.

x = randi(10,1,5);
h1 = figure(1),plot(x);
figure(100);
h2 = gcf;
copyobj(allchild(h1),h2);

Here i create a random plot in figure 1. and then using gcf i get figure 100 and copy figure 1 to figure 100.

Answer 3

[Matt J]

The only reliable way that I have found, one which avoids copyobj and keeps all the figure formatting, is to save all open figures to a temporary .fig file and then reload i. The reloaded figures will always be numbered sequentially starting at the first available fig number.

H=findobj(groot,'Type','figure'); %Get all open figures

tn=tempname('.')+".fig"; %generate temporary name

savefig(H,tn)

close all

openfig(tn); delete(tn);