MATLAB: Boxplot with descending median

arrayboxplotMATLABsorttable

I am trying to plot my data (8376×35 array with 1×35 cell array of labels) in a 35 box boxplot and order the boxes in descending order based off of the median value of each column. I have seen a lot on ordering by grouping, but I don't believe I am dealing with specific groups as all are part of one group. I started by taking the median of each column , but if I sort that in descending order, I lose the equivalent sorting of the cell array. I tried converting the array to a table with the cell array as the variable names, but could not sort the table by median values of each column. How should I go about sorting my data so that I can plot it as a boxplot in descending order?

Best Answer

Use the sort index to change the order of columns in your data.
% Create demo data
rng('default')
data = rand(8376, 35).*randi(100,1,35); 
% Compute median of each column 
med = median(data); 
% Sort the columns of data by descending median order
[~, sortIdx] = sort(med,'descend'); 
dataDescend = data(:,sortIdx); 
% Plot the results
boxplot(dataDescend)
If you want to label the orginal column order, 
set(gca, 'XTick', 1:numel(med), 'XTickLabel', sortIdx)
xlabel('Original column order')
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