empty space between values when making bar chat with datetime

I'm trying to make a stacked bar chat with some value on the y-axis and time on x-axis using datetime.

An example of my data:

    2008-Jan-14 15:00:00        0         69       1154      1444.8 
    2008-Mar-01 13:00:00        0         69       1098      1375.8 
    2008-Jun-24 15:00:00        0         70        105       399.3 
    2008-Aug-30 12:00:00        0         68        168       710.5 
    2008-Sep-14 19:00:00      338         69        638      1614.3 
    2008-Dec-11 20:00:00      525         69        100      1000.3 

The problem is, because of the many days between my values, there is a huge gap in my plot and I can barely even see the bars. So is there a way to remove the negative space while still using datetime on my x-axis?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

[Eric Sofen]

That's a tough one. Obviously, if you were doing a standard x-y plot, you'd want the datetime axis to realistically represent time. Similarly, if you are doing a bar chart with fairly densely/uniformly spaced data.

In this case, perhaps the best bet is to plot against 1:numel(dates) and then update the axis labels with text representations of the timestamps:

t = datetime+calmonths([0 3 4 5 11 12]);
data = rand(size(t));
bar(1:numel(t),data)
xticklabels(string(t))