X-axis data in years

Hello,

I have an unemployment report that reports data by the month, my data has a total of 215 points, each point representing one month. I've been trying to figure out how to have the x axis simply display the data in terms of years but I have not had any luck, looking for some help. Basically I would like the x-axis to begin with 1995 and end with 2012.

This is what I have so far:

clear all ; close all ; set(0,'DefaultFigureWindowStyle','normal') ; drawnow ; clc ;

display('Importing data........'); unemployment = dataset('File', 'PE_Monthly.txt', 'delimiter', 'tab');

startdate = datenum('1995','yyyy') enddate = datenum('2012','yyyy') dt = linspace(startdate,enddate,12);

choice = menu('Unemployment Reports U3 vs. U6', '1995-2011', 'By year/month') if choice == 1 U6 = unemployment.U6RATE; U3 = unemployment.U3RATE; x = 1:215; plot (dt, U3, dt, U6);

I get some weird results on the x axis, nothing resembling 1995-2011.

Answer 1

[the cyclist]

It is presumably plotting the datenums, just as you told it to. ;-)

Try using the datetick() function after you plot.

[the cyclist]

EDIT: @Thomas, I moved your comment here, rather than having it listed as another "answer", where you had placed it.]

Thank you worked like a charm, one thing though it did in increments of 3, is there any way to force it to display each year? I think my problem was adding datetick after the plot function.

[the cyclist]

Before you do the datetick command, you should be able to use the command

> set(gca,'XTick',<put datenums here>)

to set the ticks exactly where you want them (for example at the year marks). Then, when you use datetick() function, be sure to use the 'keepticks' option.