Error using xlim for datetime values

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Chamath Vithanawasam
Chamath Vithanawasam on 28 Aug 2018
Commented: dpb on 30 Aug 2018
I need to collect data from a text file, which I am attaching to this question, and the data collected needs to be plotted and the x axis limits need to be changed. The simplified code is as follows.
DayFile = ('SI010218.txt');
DayFileX = fopen(DayFile, 'rt');
header_cell = textscan(DayFileX, '%[^\n]', 1, 'HeaderLines', 12);
header_fields = regexp(header_cell{1}{1}, ';', 'split');
junk = fgetl(DayFileX); %because of the ^\n the \n is still in the buffer
units_line = fgetl(DayFileX);
units_fields = regexp(units_line, ';', 'split');
numfields = length(header_fields);
fmt_cell = repmat({'%f'}, 1, numfields);
fmt_cell{1} = '%[^;]'; %D format cannot handle embedded blanks
fmt_cell{100} = '%{HH:mm:ss}D';
fmt = [fmt_cell{:}];
data_cell = textscan(DayFileX, fmt, 'delimiter', ';', 'CollectOutput', true);
fclose(DayFileX);
data_cell2D = [num2cell( datetime( data_cell{1}, 'InputFormat', 'dd.MM.uuuu HH:mm:ss') ), ...
num2cell( data_cell{2} ), ... %numeric
num2cell( data_cell{3} - dateshift(data_cell{3}, 'start', 'day') ), ... %datetime, make it duration
num2cell( data_cell{4} ) ]; %numeric
adjusted_headers = matlab.lang.makeUniqueStrings( matlab.lang.makeValidName( header_fields ) );
table1 = cell2table(data_cell2D, 'VariableNames', adjusted_headers);
table1.Properties.VariableDescriptions = header_fields;
table1.Properties.VariableUnits = units_fields;
plot((table1{:,1}),(table1{:,5}));
startD = '20180201010000';
finishD = '20180201050000';
disp(startD);
disp(finishD);
tstart = datetime(startD,'InputFormat','yyyyMMddhhmmss');
tend = datetime(finishD,'InputFormat','yyyyMMddhhmmss');
disp(tstart);
disp(tend);
xlim([tstart tend]);
This will give me the following error.
>> test
20180201010000
20180201050000
01-Feb-2018 01:00:00
01-Feb-2018 05:00:00
Error using set
While setting the 'XLim' property of Axes:
Value must be a 1x2 vector of numeric type in which the second element is larger than the first and may be Inf
Error in xlim (line 43)
set(ax,'xlim',val);
Error in test (line 44)
xlim([tstart tend]);
The first four lines clearly mean that the limits I wish to have on the date/time xaxis are recognized. The 'tend' is also definitely larger that 'tstart'. So the second element is larger than the first. Why am I getting this error?
  4 Comments
Chamath Vithanawasam
Chamath Vithanawasam on 30 Aug 2018
@Kevin it is in datetime format actually. I attached the .txt file so you can try it out yourself. The data should save itself to a folder called 'table1'. When I tried your approach, it gave me the same error.
>> test
tstart =
01-Feb-2018 01:00:00
tend =
01-Feb-2018 05:00:00
Error using set
While setting the 'XLim' property of Axes:
Value must be a 1x2 vector of numeric type in which
the second element is larger than the first and may
be Inf
Error in xlim (line 43)
set(ax,'xlim',val);
Error in test (line 48)
xlim([tstart tend]);
dpb
dpb on 30 Aug 2018
That's a version problem -- I didn't think of that. Early incarnations of the overlaoded plot with the datetime ruler axes accepted it in the argument list but still used datenum to plot with as the original plot and datetick combination.
The implementation was completed to use datetime for it internally by R2017b but I don't know the exact release.
Use
tstart = datenum(2018,2,1,1,0,0)
tend = datenum(2018,2,1,5,0,0)
xlim([tstart tend]);
and it will work.
Just type xlim at the command line and you'll see the datenum values returned instead of datetime values.

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Answers (4)

dpb
dpb on 28 Aug 2018
Edited: dpb on 28 Aug 2018
And, while above Answer is true, the comment about using readtable is sufficiently worthwhile will add another based on it with the actual file--
opt=detectImportOptions('SI010218.txt'); % get Matlab's best guess of file format
opt=setvartype(opt,'TimeStamp','datetime'); % set the time column to datetime from char
opt=setvaropts(opt,'TimeStamp','InputFormat','dd.MM.yyyy HH:mm:ss'); % and set input format
opt.VariableUnitsLine=opt.VariableNamesLine+1; % not req'd, but since is in file...
t=readtable('SI010218.txt',opt); % and then just read the table
plot(t.TimeStamp,t.TrfTmp_Max_) % plot
t1=datetime(2018,2,1,1,1,0); % set the desired limits
t2=datetime(2018,2,1,5,0,0);
xlim([t1 t2])
yields
The variable names in the file aren't very conducive to being used programmatically, unfortunately, but if there are some better names for specific columns of most interest (presuming there are some out the total of over 150), those can be set programmatically either in the opt object for import or after loading.
This removes the other machinations entirely...the table is really a quite useful (newish) enhancement, indeed.
  4 Comments
dpb
dpb on 30 Aug 2018
OK, release issues. R2015a still uses datenum for the internals even though the plot function will accept datetime. Convert your start/end dates to datenum instead of datetime and then xlim error will also go away; that's the reason for the "must be numeric" error, datenum is just a scaled double. I should've thought of this; ran into it previously w/ R2016b but just didn't think about using an earlier release than R2017b that I'm using here, sorry.
dpb
dpb on 30 Aug 2018
Edited: dpb on 30 Aug 2018
With earlier releases, it's more of a pain to convert data because you have to do all the type conversion formatting explicitly, because readtable won't let you read variable units; if you read variable names then it thinks it knows best and the data must start on the next line. In that case, then, everything is imported as cellstr array...
t=readtable('Si010218.txt','headerlines',12,'delimiter',';');
t(1,:)=[]; % remove the units line
t.TimeStamp=datetime(t.TimeStamp,'inputformat','dd.MM.yyyy HH:mm:ss');
By reading the variable names and 12 header lines, everything is brought in as cell string array so have to convert the numeric values.
I didn't know what all the variable types were so just did those that were numeric by
for i=2:size(t,2)
try
t.(i)=str2double(t.(i));
catch
disp(i)
end
end
which left a list of 13 columns that are something else or have missing values or somesuch. But one can then do similar as to Steven and convert them as they should be or you can build a cell string array of formats and pass it as the 'Format' named parameter. Since, as you note above, textscan can't parse the blank in the date string, import it as cellstr as is done by default.
The alternative would be to use
t=readtable('Si010218.txt','headerlines',14,'delimiter',';','readvariablenames',0);
t.Var1=datetime(t.Var1,'inputformat','dd.MM.yyyy HH:mm:ss');
>> t(1:4,1:10)
ans =
Var1 Var2 Var3 Var4 Var5 Var6 Var7 Var8 Var9 Var10
____________________ _____ ____ _____ _____ _____ _____ ____ ____ _____
01-Feb-2018 00:00:54 30.16 29.4 29.97 39.46 38.13 39.08 26.1 85.4 100
01-Feb-2018 00:01:55 30.16 29.4 29.97 39.46 38.13 39.08 26.1 85.4 100
01-Feb-2018 00:02:56 30.16 29.4 29.97 39.46 37.94 39.08 26.1 85.4 100
01-Feb-2018 00:03:57 30.16 29.4 29.97 39.46 38.13 39.08 26.1 85.4 100
>>
You can set variable names as desired and make the fixup to a duration pretty easily.
Just sticking with the default names for syntax,
t.Var100=t.Var100-dateshift(t.Var100,'start','day');
Of course the same issue about plot and the mixture of external interface datetime and internal datenum still exists.

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dpb
dpb on 30 Aug 2018
OK, I answered in couple of comments, but they're buried so will post (yet another :) ) Answer to the original problem only.
OK, this is a release issue.
R2015a still uses datenum for the internals even though there is an overloaded plot function that accepts datetime object. I'm not sure when TMW got the internals all to be consistent; by R2017b that I have they are, so my previous example works correctly. Of course, it also has detectImportOptions that simplifies a lot of the complexity that your release doesn't yet have, either.
Convert your start/end dates to datenum instead of datetime and then xlim error will also go away; that's the reason for the "must be numeric" error, datenum is just a scaled double. I should've thought of this; ran into it previously w/ R2016b but just didn't think about using an earlier release than R2017b that I'm using here.
tstart = datenum(2018,2,1,1,0,0)
tend = datenum(2018,2,1,5,0,0)
xlim([tstart tend]);
will solve your xlim problem; that datenum is just scaled double is the reason for the error message about "must be numeric".
You can just type
xlim
at command line to return the current limits and you'll see the datenum values,
datestr(xlim)
will display their interpretation as dates.
  2 Comments
dpb
dpb on 30 Aug 2018
Thanks, should have recognized the problem right off the bat as had run into it previously. Let trying to simplify the import overwhelm and consequently just whiffed on the actual problem initially.

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Steven Lord
Steven Lord on 28 Aug 2018
Looking at this section of your code:
data_cell2D = [num2cell( datetime( data_cell{1}, 'InputFormat', 'dd.MM.uuuu HH:mm:ss') ), ...
num2cell( data_cell{2} ), ... %numeric
num2cell( data_cell{3} - dateshift(data_cell{3}, 'start', 'day') ), ... %datetime, make it duration
num2cell( data_cell{4} ) ]; %numeric
adjusted_headers = matlab.lang.makeUniqueStrings( matlab.lang.makeValidName( header_fields ) );
table1 = cell2table(data_cell2D, 'VariableNames', adjusted_headers);
Why are you stuffing your data into a cell array only to immediately convert that cell array into a table? Just make the table directly.
firstDatetime = datetime( data_cell{1}, 'InputFormat', 'dd.MM.uuuu HH:mm:ss');
firstNumeric = data_cell{2};
firstDuration = data_cell{3} - dateshift(data_cell{3}, 'start', 'day');
secondNumeric = data_cell{4};
adjusted_headers = matlab.lang.makeUniqueStrings( matlab.lang.makeValidName( header_fields ) );
table1 = table(firstDatetime, firstNumeric, firstDuration, secondNumeric, ...
'VaribleNames', adjusted_headers);
Or rather than using textscan and converting the raw data into a table, read it in directly into a table using readtable. The 'Format' argument can accept the same formats as textscan.
Your duration column would probably need to be computed after the fact, but table indexing (specifically the T.var syntax in the third row of the table on that page) should make that easy.
  3 Comments
Chamath Vithanawasam
Chamath Vithanawasam on 28 Aug 2018
Terribly sorry, I forgot to upload it. Will upload now.
Chamath Vithanawasam
Chamath Vithanawasam on 30 Aug 2018
Steven's suggestion gave me the following error.
>> test
Error using setVarNames (line 35)
The VariableNames property must contain one name for each
variable in the table.
Error in table (line 305)
t = setVarNames(t,vnames); % error if invalid,
duplicate, or empty
Error in test (line 22)
table1 = table(firstDatetime, firstNumeric, firstDuration,
secondNumeric, ...

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dpb
dpb on 28 Aug 2018
Edited: dpb on 28 Aug 2018
While Steven L has the better overall, I'll point out the specific cause for the error in the existing code; as the other two respondents indicated, your plot axis isn't time because in
...
table1 = cell2table(data_cell2D, 'VariableNames', adjusted_headers);
...
plot((table1{:,1}),(table1{:,5}));
You dereferenced the table data as table1{:,1} with the "curlies" ('}') which returns the underlying data as the native double array instead of as a table; hence plot() x-axis is numeric and hence the error from xlim
plot(table1(:,1),table1(:,5))
would work, but more readable would be
plot(table1.X,table1.Y)
where 'X,Y' are placeholders for the name of the table variables in column 1 and 5, respectively. Either syntax returns a table object and, presuming (altho I didn't read the code in detail) the X value is a datetime, then the plot will be versus a datetime on the x-axis and then xlim would succeed.
  2 Comments
Chamath Vithanawasam
Chamath Vithanawasam on 30 Aug 2018
Edited: Chamath Vithanawasam on 30 Aug 2018
This seems plausible, but I am getting an error. I already attached the .txt file from which data will be imported. The workspace shows me the data in table1 as shown in the screenshot below.
This is just a small section though.
So in order to try your method I should do something like this?
X = ('TimeStamp');
Y = ('HsTmp_Max_');
plot(table1.X,table1.Y);
Because it gave me the error.
Error using test (line 28)
Unrecognized variable name 'X'.
Apologies for these trivial issues.
jonas
jonas on 30 Aug 2018
You are using the wrong syntax for dynamic field names, try
plot(table1.(X),table1.(Y));
The braces are not stored in X and Y.

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