Divide date ticks into hours

I wanted to divide my 24 hour data into 1 hour each, but MATLAB divided it into 1 hour 2 minutes each?, Please help on how to divide into 1 hour each

Answer 1

[Adam Danz]

Use xtickformat | ytickformat | ztickformat which sets the TickLabelFormat of the axes (Matlab R2016b or later)

datetick(tickaxis,dateFormat) with dateFormat='HH' will also set the datetime format but the axis label will not include the full date references that shows using the x|y|ztickformat functions. Note: datetick is officially no longer recommended starting in R2024a.

[Ajmal Rasheeda Satheesh]

I tried that and this is what I got, but I think this is just hiding values like 22:57 to 22, which is not what I want

[Ajmal Rasheeda Satheesh]

No worries I figured it out, I had 'keepticks' turned on, that somehow ruined the plot

[Adam Danz]

Good find. KeepTicks prevents matlab from re-computing an optimal tick interval given the length of tick labels.

[Peter Perkins]

datetick is not really a great way to make plots against time. I recommend looking at plotting aganst a datetime instead.

[Adam Danz]

datetick works with datetime values. I suppose xtickformat is a bit better since it includes the date stamp.

dtm = datetime('today') + seconds(0:10:1000); 
data = rand(size(dtm)); 
plot(dtm, data)
datetick('x', 'MM', 'keepticks')
xlabel('minutes')

get(gca, 'xtick') % still datetime 

ans = 1×10 datetime array
   Nov 23, 2021, 00:00   Nov 23, 2021, 00:02   Nov 23, 2021, 00:04   Nov 23, 2021, 00:06   Nov 23, 2021, 00:08   Nov 23, 2021, 00:10   Nov 23, 2021, 00:12   Nov 23, 2021, 00:14   Nov 23, 2021, 00:16   Nov 23, 2021, 00:18

Or using xtickformat(datefmt)

figure()
plot(dtm, data)
xtickformat('mm') % NOTE: mm with xtickformat vs MM with datetick 😕
xlabel('minutes')

[Peter Perkins]

Adam, you are right. I assumed the OP was using datenums. Still, datetick is not really the right way to manage the ticks in a datetime plot. Better to use the axis properties.

>> d = datetime(2021,11,24) + minutes(0:30:14400);
>> x = 1:length(d);
>> plot(d,x)
>> ax = get(gca,"XAxis")
ax = 
DatetimeRuler with properties:

Limits: [Nov 24, 2021    Dec 04, 2021]
TickValues: [Nov 24, 2021    Nov 25, 2021    Nov 26, 2021    Nov 27, 2021    Nov 28, 2021    Nov 29, 2021    Nov 30, 2021    Dec 01, 2021    …    ]
TickLabelFormat: 'MMM dd'

Show all properties

[Adam Danz]

Thanks Peter. I've updated my answer.