MATLAB: YAxis property of an Axes read-only, but XAxis and ZAxis are not.

axesaxisread-only

I discovered that the YAxis property of an Axes is considered read-only, but the XAxis and ZAxis properties can be set and get. I was wondering if there was a specific reason for this, or if this is an oversight. Why is the YAxis property read-only, but the XAxis and ZAxis properties are not?

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I needed to write code that saved the properties of the axes handle and then removed the read-only properties from the structure. I also needed to remove the individual handles as well and save those as structures, so that when the figure is closed I can recreate the figure by setting a new handle to the previous values without needing to save it as a .fig which will not work for my application.

Trying to generate code from your figure yourself is probably going to be difficult. If you're doing this interactively, use the Generate Code option on the File menu to create code that you can run (with the original data) to recreate the figure.

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MATLAB: How to delete axes and tick in figure

Precisely. As your question says, you're trying to mess with axis properties, not those of the figure.

Substitute

hAx=gca;        % get current axes handle
set(hAx,...)    % set desired property

There are routines specific for the ticks or the "dot" notation besides set

OK...did move content to Answer per request. :)

One additional note -- the above retrieves the current axes handle first, then uses it. This ensures always referring to the same axis in the event of some user interaction that could change focus.

Even better is to save the handle when the axes is created (although plot and friends will create one for themselves in which case the above is the way to retrieve it immediately).

MATLAB: How to store the properties of a figure in MATLAB, then reset them at a later time

The GET function returns properties that are read-only and cannot be set using the SET function.

The best method for storing a figure's properties, then resetting them at a later time, is to use the SAVEAS function to save the figure as a FIG-file.

saveas(gca, 'foo', 'fig');

Then, you can load this figure using the OPEN function:

open('foo.fig');

However, if you would like to store the properties in a variable, you can avoid the read-only properties when resetting the figure. The read-only properties of a figure are specified as:

readonly = {'BeingDeleted','CurrentCharacter','CurrentObject','FixedColors','Type'};

Then, the figure properties can be reset using:

props = rmfield(props, readonly);
fnames = fieldnames(props);
for n = 1:length(fnames)
      set(gcf,fnames{n},props.(fnames{n}))
end

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MATLAB: How to delete axes and tick in figure

MATLAB: How to store the properties of a figure in MATLAB, then reset them at a later time

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