MATLAB: I made a Matlab GUI through guide, and almost everything is working but I think something is wrong with the callbacks. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

callbackguiMATLABplot

Its a simple gui that selects an excel file and you are able to plot different variables of data vs each other. I am able to select the excel file and the dropdown boxes become populated with variables, but when i click which variable i want, it doesn't plot it and in the command window this pops up: ans = @(hObject,eventdata)MainGUI('updateAxes',hObject,eventdata,guidata(hObject))
this is my code, i believe its something with the callback.
% --- Executes on button press in pushbuttonLoadXLS.
function pushbuttonLoadXLS_Callback(hObject, eventdata, handles)
% hObject    handle to pushbuttonLoadXLS (see GCBO)
% eventdata  reserved - to be defined in a future version of MATLAB
% handles    structure with handles and user data (see GUIDATA)
handles.fileName = uigetfile('*.xls');
guidata(hObject,handles)
setPopupmenuString(handles.popupmenuX,eventdata,handles)
setPopupmenuString(handles.popupmenuY,eventdata,handles)
set(handles.popupmenuX,'callback','@(hObject,eventdata)MainGUI(''updateAxes'',hObject,eventdata,guidata(hObject))')
set(handles.popupmenuY,'callback','@(hObject,eventdata)MainGUI(''updateAxes'',hObject,eventdata,guidata(hObject))')
set(handles.radiobuttonRaw,'callback','@(hObject,eventdata)MainGUI(''updateAxes'',hObject,eventdata,guidata(hObject))')
set(handles.radiobuttonNormalized,'callback','@(hObject,eventdata)MainGUI(''updateAxes'',hObject,eventdata,guidata(hObject))')
function setPopupmenuString(hObject,eventdata,handles)
fileName = handles.fileName;
[numbers,colNames] = xlsread(fileName);
set(hObject,'string',colNames);
function [x,y] = readExcelColumns(fileName,xColNum,yColNum)
a = xlsread(fileName);
x = a(:,xColNum); % make time be x axis for data
y = a(:,yColNum); % put data in y axis
function updateAxes(hObject,eventdata,handles)
xColNum = get(handles.popupmenuX,'value');
yColNum = get(handles.popupmenuY,'value');
fileName = handles.fileName;
[x,y] = readExcelColumns(fileName,xColNum,yColNum);
flagWantsNormalized = ...
    get(handles.radiobuttonNormalized,'value');
if flagWantsNormalized
    y = (y - min(y)) / range(y);
end
plot(handles.axes1,x,y)

Best Answer

It is a very ugly idea, to define a callback like this:
'@(hObject,eventdata)MainGUI(''updateAxes'',hObject,eventdata,guidata(hObject))'
This is a string, which is interpreted in the base workspace and defines an anonymous function there. Why do you use such an obfuscated and indirect method to call a callback? Prefer:
set(handles.popupmenuX, 'callback', @updateAxes)
and get the current value of the handles struct there:
function updateAxes(hObject, EventData)
handles = guidata(hObject);
...
It looks strange, that the Excel file is read multiple times. Reading in once and storing the data in the handles struct will be more convenient. But I'm not sure, what happens in the code exactly, because it is hard to read without a proper formatting.
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