How do I control axis tick labels, limits, and axes tick locations?

I would like to know if I have to set the XTickLabel, YTickLabel, ZTickLabel, XTick, YTick, and ZTick properties.

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

You can control the axis limits using the "xlim", "ylim", and "zlim" functions. Pass the functions a two- element vector of the form [min max]. For example:

x = linspace(0,2*pi);
y = sin(x);
plot(x,y);
xlim([0 2*pi])
ylim([-1.5 1.5])

You can control the placement of the tick marks along an axis using the "xticks", "yticks", and "zticks" functions. Specify the tick mark locations as a vector of increasing values. The values do not need to be evenly spaced. For example:

xticks([0 pi 2*pi])
yticks([-1 0 1])

To control the labels associated with each tick mark, use the "xticklabels", "yticklabels", and "zticklabels" functions. Specify the labels using a cell array of character vectors. If you do not want tick labels to show, then specify an empty cell array {}.To include special characters or Greek letters in the labels, use TeX markup, such as \pi. For example:

xticklabels({'0','\pi','2\pi'})
yticklabels({'min','y = 0','max'})

You also can rotate the tick labels and change the format using functions such as "xtickangle" and "xtickformat". For more information about these functions, see:

http://www.mathworks.com/help/releases/R2017b/matlab/axes.html

If you are using R2016a or earlier, you can specify the limits, tick values, and tick labels by setting properties of the Axes object. For example, to modify the values in the x direction, use the XLim, XLimMode, XTick, XTickMode, XTickLabel, and XTickLabelMode properties, such as:

ax = gca;
ax.XLim = [0 2*pi];
ax.XTick = [0 pi 2*pi];

For more information about these properties, see:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/releases/R2017b/matlab/ref/matlab.graphics.axis.axes-properties.html

[Siddharth Shukla]

Even when I copy the same code (as provided by mathworks team) and try to run it , I get following error message:

Values plotted against x-axis must be datetime values. To create datetime values, use the DATETIME function.

Am i doing anything wrong?

Answer 2

[Bradley Thomson]

set(gca,'XTickLabel',['0';' ';'1';' ';'2';' ';'3';' ';'4'])

Note an issue with this formulation is that floating-point tick labels yield an error: Error using vertcat Dimensions of matrices being concatenated are not consistent.

[Mike Garrity]

I think that what you're referring to is what this part ...

set(gca,'XTickLabel',['1  ';'100'])
% Alternatively, use a cell array of strings:
set(gca,'XTickLabel',{'1','100'})

... is trying to explain.

If you do this with a 2D array of characters (the first version), then you need to add spaces so that all of the rows have the same number of columns.

If you do this with a cell array (the second version), then you don't need to add spaces.

Either way works. Choose the one you prefer.