MATLAB: Do LINE and PLOT not honor the default properties for a line that have been set using MATLAB 7.8 (R2009a)

MATLAB

I have changed the defaults for the line on an axis as below. When I plot a line using LINE or PLOT, the figure does not contain the default properties for the lines drawn as I have set them.
h = gca;
set(h, 'DefaultLineLineStyle', '-.')
set(h, 'DefaultLineMarker', 'o')
set(h, 'DefaultLineColor', 'g')
set(h, 'DefaultLineMarkerEdgeColor', 'r')
set(h, 'DefaultLineMarkerFaceColor', 'b')
hold on
plot(0,0)
plot(1,1, '*')
plot(2,2, 'o')
line([0 4], [0 -4])
line([0 4], [-1 -5], 'Color', 'g')

Best Answer

The changed default properties for the axis are honored if LINE is called using the low-level syntax of LINE as below:
h = gca
set(h, 'DefaultLineMarker', 'o')
set(h, 'DefaultLineColor', 'g')
set(h, 'DefaultLineMarkerEdgeColor', 'r')
set(h, 'DefaultLineMarkerFaceColor', 'b')
set(h, 'DefaultLineLineStyle', ':')
line('xdata',[0 4]', 'ydata',[0 -4]')
More information regarding low-level syntax of LINE is available at:
 <http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/techdoc/ref/line.html>
PLOT is a high-level function and picks up the default properties set for the figure, for example:
set(gcf,'DefaultAxesColorOrder',[1 0 0;0 1 0;0 0 1],...
      'DefaultAxesLineStyleOrder','-|--|:')
t = 0:pi/20:2*pi;
a = ones(length(t),9);
for i = 1:9
a(:,i) = sin(t-i/5)';
end
plot(t,a)
More information regarding line styles used for plotting is available at:
 <http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/techdoc/creating_plots/bqsxy_a-1.html#f1-13155>
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