Grouped Bar Series Xdata in 2014b

In Matlab versions prior to 2014b we could get the x-position of individual bars in a bar series like this:

hBar = bar(data);
x = get(get(hBar,'children'),'xdata');

With R2014b this does not work anymore. This breaks a lot of my existing code, thanks Mathworks! Is there a way to get the x-position of individual bars in a bar series in version 2014b?

Answer 1

[Kelly Kearney]

You can get the position of the centers of each bar through the XOffset property:

hBar = bar(rand(10,5));
xb = bsxfun(@plus, hBar(1).XData, [hBar.XOffset]');

[Star Strider]

Thank you, Kelly!

I had no idea. Even TMW didn’t come through with that when I asked them.

[Kelly Kearney]

Probably understandably, they don't seem to like to publicize the undocumented stuff, even if you ask directly. At least, that's been my experience when contacting tech support... their replies to most of my "How do I hack into R2014b objects?" questions have mostly boiled to "You can't/shouldn't do that." :-) So my method has been to dig into the hidden properties (via this) and fumble around until something works.

[Star Strider]

Wow!

I don’t know why I hadn’t seen that FEX contribution before. Now bookmarked.

You still never cease to amaze me with everything you know!

[Henry]

Thank you, Kelly! Very helpful indeed.

[z8080]

Is there a way to also control this horizontal displacement/offset/jitter for an existing bar graph, i.e. not just find out how much it is? It appears to not be possible to directly assign a value to hBar.XOffset!

Answer 2

[Star Strider]

That’s no longer possible. I submitted a Support Request complaining about the useful features in R2014a and earlier that were lost in HG2. Complain directly, and maybe MATLAB graphics will be useful again some day. I doubt there will be any immediate miracles, though.

Meanwhile, don’t uninstall R2014a ! (I haven’t.) You can have R2014a and R2014b open at the same time if you need to do something in R2014b that isn’t in R2014a, then pass the result to R2014a as a .mat file to do useful graphics.

EDIT —

Tell them to add the information in Kelly’s Answer in the ‘official’ documentation. She must have gotten in from the ‘Undocumented MATLAB’ site.