Help With Plot Legend

hello,

if i have a cell array of strings for example:

cell{1}='st1';

cell{2}='st2';

cell{3}='st3';

and make a plot with 3 lines each with variable name cell{n}.

Why is it that writing:

legend(cell{1}, cell{2}, cell{3})

only returns a legend with the one variable name cell{3} in it?

Is there a way of doing this for more than 3 variables using a loop?

[Walter Roberson]

Duplicate is at http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/38113-plot-help

[Dr. Seis]

I guess the question is... how is your plots set up? Can you copy/paste that part of your code?

Answer 1

[Dr. Seis]

If you are just trying to apply the 3 legend strings to 3 lines on a plot, then all you need to do is:

legend(cell)

Take a look at these other posts related to legend entries for more help:

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/29799-adding-a-legend-and-different-coloured-lines-in-a-for-loop

and

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/31510-help-with-plotting-multiple-line-complete-with-legends

Answer 2

[Image Analyst]

It doesn't. Here, try this:

cellArray{1}='st1';
cellArray{2}='st2';
cellArray{3}='st3';
colorMap = lines(8)
for k = 1:3
  y = rand(1,10);
  plot(y, 'Color', colorMap(k,:));
  hold on;
end
legend(cellArray{1}, cellArray{2}, cellArray{3});

But I did notice something very bad in your code. You overwrote the built-in MATLAB function called "cell" with your variable named "cell." Don't do that. Other common functions/entities people destroy are "i", "j", and "image".

[Image Analyst]

I guess I don't get it. You could call plot() 3 times with different variables and call legend and have all variable names show up in the legend. You could make 3 arrays, st1, st2, and st3, and call plot(st1), plot(st2), and plot(st3) and then call legend and have 3 lines with each name beside a line in the legend.

[Walter Roberson]

IA, my comment was in response to a comment from someone else that has since been deleted.