How do you plot with missing data?

Suppose I have three vectors: Year=[2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010], X=[1 2 1 4 5 6 7 2 3 5 6], and Y=[1 2 3 4 5 2 3 1 2 3].

I want to plot them on the same graph where 'Year' is on the x-axis. Because the third term in 'Y' is missing data, how do I go about plotting this? Ideally, I'd like the line plot to be disjointed where data is missing.

Answer 1

[Voss]

If you know where the missing element(s) belong(s), put NaN(s) there, which will give you a disjointed line:

Year = [2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010];
X = [1 2   1 4 5 6 7 2 3 5 6];

% this:
Y = [1 2 NaN 3 4 5 2 3 1 2 3];
% or this:
Y = [1 2     3 4 5 2 3 1 2 3];
Y = [Y([1 2]) NaN Y(3:end)];

plot(Year,[X;Y])
legend('X','Y')