Why does copyobj return an error when Copying Legends or Colorbars in MATLAB R2014b?

Why does copyobj return an error when copying legends or colorbars in MATLAB R2014b?

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

Starting in MATLAB R2014b, legends and colorbars must be associated with an axes. If you want to copy a legend or a colorbar using copyobj, you also must copy the associated axes.

Copying a legend without the associated axes returns an error message. For example:

plot(rand(2))

l = legend('show'); % legend

ax = gca; % associated axes

fnew = figure; % new figure

copies = copyobj(l,fnew); % copy only legend to new figure

Error using matlab.graphics.illustration.Legend/connectCopyToTree (line 5)

A legend must be copied with its associated axes. Use a vector input with COPYOBJ in order to copy the legend and axes together.

You must copy both the legend and the associated axes.

 copies = copyobj([l,ax],fnew)

 2x1 graphics array:

   Legend    (data1, data2)
   Axes