MATLAB Function Reference

Errorbarseries Properties

You can set and query graphics object properties using the set and get commands or the Property editor (propertyeditor).

Note that you cannot define default property values for errorbarseries objects. See Plot Objects for more information on errorbarseries objects.

Errorbarseries Property Descriptions

This section provides a description of properties. Curly braces { } enclose default values.

This object is being deleted. The BeingDeleted property provides a mechanism that you can use to determine whether objects are in the process of being deleted. MATLAB sets the BeingDeleted property to on when the object's delete function callback is called (see the DeleteFcn property). It remains set to on while the delete function executes, after which the object no longer exists.

For example, an object's delete function might call other functions that act on a number of different objects. These functions might not need to perform actions on objects that are going to be deleted, and therefore can check the object's BeingDeleted property before acting.

Callback routine interruption. The BusyAction property enables you to control how MATLAB handles events that potentially interrupt executing callbacks. If there is a callback function executing, callbacks invoked subsequently always attempt to interrupt it.

If the Interruptible property of the object whose callback is executing is set to on (the default), then interruption occurs at the next point where the event queue is processed. If the Interruptible property is off, the BusyAction property (of the object owning the executing callback) determines how MATLAB handles the event. The choices are

• cancel -- Discard the event that attempted to execute a second callback routine.
• queue -- Queue the event that attempted to execute a second callback routine until the current callback finishes.

Button press callback function. A callback that executes whenever you press a mouse button while the pointer is over the errorbarseries object.

This property can be

• A string that is a valid MATLAB expression
• The name of an M-file
• A function handle

The expression executes in the MATLAB workspace.

See Function Handle Callbacks for information on how to use function handles to define the callbacks.

Children of the errorbarseries object. An array containing the handles of all line objects parented to the errorbarseries object (whether visible or not).

Note that if a child object's HandleVisibility property is set to callback or off, its handle does not show up in the errorbar Children property unless you set the Root ShowHiddenHandles property to on:

• set(0,'ShowHiddenHandles','on')
  

Clipping mode. MATLAB clips errorbar plots to the axes plot box by default. If you set Clipping to off, lines might be displayed outside the axes plot box.

Color of errorbar lines. A three-element RGB vector or one of the MATLAB predefined names, specifying the curve and error bar color. See the ColorSpec reference page for more information on specifying color.

For example, the following statement would produce an errorbar graph with both the curve and error bars colored red.

• h = errorbar(Y,randn(10,1),'Color','r');
  

Not available on errorbarseries objects.

Callback executed during object deletion. A callback that executes when the errorbarseries object is deleted (e.g., this might happen when you issue a delete command on the errorbarseries object, its parent axes, or the figure containing it). MATLAB executes the callback before destroying the object's properties so the callback routine can query these values.

The handle of the object whose DeleteFcn is being executed is accessible only through the Root CallbackObject property, which can be queried using gcbo.

See Function Handle Callbacks for information on how to use function handles to define the callback function.

See the BeingDeleted property for related information.

Label used by plot legends. The legend and the plot browser use this text for labels for any errorbarseries objects appearing in these legends.

Erase mode. This property controls the technique MATLAB uses to draw and erase errorbar child objects (the lines used to construct the errorbar graph). Alternative erase modes are useful for creating animated sequences, where control of the way individual objects are redrawn is necessary to improve performance and obtain the desired effect.

• normal -- Redraw the affected region of the display, performing the three-dimensional analysis necessary to ensure that all objects are rendered correctly. This mode produces the most accurate picture, but is the slowest. The other modes are faster, but do not perform a complete redraw and are therefore less accurate.
• none -- Do not erase objects when they are moved or destroyed. While the objects are still visible on the screen after erasing with EraseMode none, you cannot print these objects because MATLAB stores no information about their former locations.
• xor-- Draw and erase the object by performing an exclusive OR (XOR) with each pixel index of the screen behind it. Erasing the object does not damage the color of the objects behind it. However, the color of the erased object depends on the color of the screen behind it and it is correctly colored only when it is over the axes background color (or the figure background color if the axes Color property is set to none). That is, it isn't erased correctly if there are objects behind it.
• background -- Erase the graphics objects by redrawing them in the axes background color, (or the figure background color if the axes Color property is set to none). This damages other graphics objects that are behind the erased object, but the erased object is always properly colored.

Printing with Nonnormal Erase Modes

MATLAB always prints figures as if the EraseMode of all objects is normal. This means graphics objects created with EraseMode set to none, xor, or background can look different on screen than on paper. On screen, MATLAB can mathematically combine layers of colors (e.g., perform an XOR on a pixel color with that of the pixel behind it) and ignore three-dimensional sorting to obtain greater rendering speed. However, these techniques are not applied to the printed output.

Set the axes background color with the axes Color property. Set the figure background color with the figure Color property.

You can use the MATLAB getframe command or other screen capture applications to create an image of a figure containing nonnormal mode objects.

Control access to object's handle by command-line users and GUIs. This property determines when an object's handle is visible in its parent's list of children. HandleVisibility is useful for preventing command-line users from accidentally accessing the errorbarseries object.

• on -- Handles are always visible when HandleVisibility is on.
• callback -- Setting HandleVisibility to callback causes handles to be visible from within callback routines or functions invoked by callback routines, but not from within functions invoked from the command line. This provides a means to protect GUIs from command-line users, while allowing callback routines to have access to object handles.
• off -- Setting HandleVisibility to off makes handles invisible at all times. This might be necessary when a callback invokes a function that might potentially damage the GUI (such as evaluating a user-typed string) and so temporarily hides its own handles during the execution of that function.

Functions Affected by Handle Visibility

When a handle is not visible in its parent's list of children, it cannot be returned by functions that obtain handles by searching the object hierarchy or querying handle properties. This includes get, findobj, gca, gcf, gco, newplot, cla, clf, and close.

Properties Affected by Handle Visibility

When a handle's visibility is restricted using callback or off, the object's handle does not appear in its parent's Children property, figures do not appear in the root's CurrentFigure property, objects do not appear in the root's CallbackObject property or in the figure's CurrentObject property, and axes do not appear in their parent's CurrentAxes property.

Overriding Handle Visibility

You can set the Root ShowHiddenHandles property to on to make all handles visible regardless of their HandleVisibility settings (this does not affect the values of the HandleVisibility properties). See also findall.

Handle Validity

Handles that are hidden are still valid. If you know an object's handle, you can set and get its properties and pass it to any function that operates on handles.

Selectable by mouse click. HitTest determines if the errorbarseries object can become the current object (as returned by the gco command and the figure CurrentObject property) as a result of a mouse click on the curve and error bars that compose the errorbar graph. If HitTest is off, clicking the errorbarseries object selects the object below it (which is usually the axes containing it).

Select errorbarseries object on lines or area of graph. This property enables you to select errorbarseries objects in two ways:

• Select by clicking curve and error bars (default).
• Select by clicking anywhere in the extent of the errorbar graph.

When HitTestArea is off, you must click the curve or error bars to select the errorbarseries object. When HitTestArea is on, you can select the errorbarseries object by clicking anywhere within the extent of the errorbar graph (i.e., anywhere within a rectangle that encloses all the lines).

Callback routine interruption mode. The Interruptible property controls whether an errorbarseries object callback can be interrupted by callbacks invoked subsequently.

Only callbacks defined for the ButtonDownFcn are affected by the Interruptible property. MATLAB checks for events that can interrupt a callback only when it encounters a drawnow, figure, getframe, or pause command in the routine. See the BusyAction property for related information.

Setting Interruptible to on allows any graphics object's callback to interrupt callback routines originating from an errorbar property. Note that MATLAB does not save the state of variables or the display (e.g., the handle returned by the gca or gcf command) when an interruption occurs.

Errorbar length below data point. The errorbar function uses this data to determine the length of the errorbar below each data point. Specify these values in data units. See also UData.

LDataSource                  string (MATLAB variable)

Link LData to MATLAB variable. Set this property to a MATLAB variable that is evaluated in the base workspace to generate the LData.

MATLAB reevaluates this property only when you set it. Therefore, a change to workspace variables appearing in an expression does not change LData.

You can use the refreshdata function to force an update of the object's data. refreshdata also enables you to specify that the data source variable be evaluated in the workspace of a function from which you call refreshdata.

See the refreshdata reference page for more information.

Line style. This property specifies the line style used for the curve and error bars. Available line styles are shown in the following table.

Symbol	Line Style
-	Solid line (default)
--	Dashed line
:	Dotted line
-.	Dash-dot line
none	No line

You can use LineStyle none when you want to place a marker at each point but do not want the points connected with a line (see the Marker property).

The width of the curve and error bar lines. Specify this value in points (1 point = ¹/₇₂ inch). The default LineWidth is 0.5 points.

Marker symbol. The Marker property specifies the type of markers that are displayed at the data points defining the curve. You can set values for the Marker property independently from the LineStyle property. Supported markers include those shown in the following table.

Marker Specifier	Description
+	Plus sign
o	Circle
*	Asterisk
.	Point
x	Cross
s	Square
d	Diamond
^	Upward-pointing triangle
v	Downward-pointing triangle
>	Right-pointing triangle
<	Left-pointing triangle
p	Five-pointed star (pentagram)
h	Six-pointed star (hexagram)
none	No marker (default)

Marker edge color. The color of the marker or the edge color for filled markers (circle, square, diamond, pentagram, hexagram, and the four triangles). ColorSpec defines the color to use. none specifies no color, which makes nonfilled markers invisible. auto sets MarkerEdgeColor to the same color as the Color property.

Marker face color. The fill color for markers that are closed shapes (circle, square, diamond, pentagram, hexagram, and the four triangles). ColorSpec defines the color to use. none makes the interior of the marker transparent, allowing the background to show through. auto sets the fill color to the axes color, or to the figure color if the axes Color property is set to none (which is the factory default for axes objects).

Marker size. A scalar specifying the size of the marker in points. The default value for MarkerSize is 6 points (1 point = 1/72 inch). Note that MATLAB draws the point marker (specified by the '.' symbol) at one-third the specified size.

Parent of errorbarseries object. This property contains the handle of the errorbarseries object's parent. The parent of an errorbarseries object is the axes, hggroup, or hgtransform object that contains it.

See Objects That Can Contain Other Objects for more information on parenting graphics objects.

Is object selected? When you set this property to on, MATLAB displays selection handles at the corners and midpoints if the SelectionHighlight property is also on (the default). You can, for example, define the ButtonDownFcn callback to set this property to on, thereby indicating that the errorbarseries object has been selected.

Objects are highlighted when selected. When the Selected property is on, MATLAB indicates the selected state by drawing selection handles on the curve and error bars. When SelectionHighlight is off, MATLAB does not draw the handles.

User-specified object label. The Tag property provides a means to identify graphics objects with a user-specified label. This is particularly useful when you are constructing interactive graphics programs that would otherwise need to define object handles as global variables or pass them as arguments between callbacks.

For example, you might create an errorbarseries object and set the Tag property:

• t = errorbar(Y,E,'Tag','errorbar1')
  

When you want to access the errorbarseries object, you can use findobj to find the errorbarseries object's handle.

The following statement changes the MarkerFaceColor property of the object whose Tag is errorbar1.

• set(findobj('Tag','errorbar1'),'MarkerFaceColor','red')
  

Type of graphics object. This property contains a string that identifies the class of the graphics object. For errorbarseries objects, Type is 'hggroup'. The following statement finds all the hggroup objects in the current axes.

• t = findobj(gca,'Type','hggroup');
  

Errorbar length above data point. The errorbar function uses this data to determine the length of the errorbar above each data point. Specify these values in data units.

UDataSource                  string (MATLAB variable)

Link UData to MATLAB variable. Set this property to a MATLAB variable that is evaluated in the base workspace to generate the UData.

MATLAB reevaluates this property only when you set it. Therefore, a change to workspace variables appearing in an expression does not change UData.

You can use the refreshdata function to force an update of the object's data. refreshdata also enables you to specify that the data source variable be evaluated in the workspace of a function from which you call refreshdata.

See the refreshdata reference page for more information.

Associate a context menu with the errorbarseries object. Assign this property the handle of a uicontextmenu object created in the errorbarseries object's parent figure. Use the uicontextmenu function to create the context menu. MATLAB displays the context menu whenever you right-click over the errorbarseries object.

User-specified data. This property can be any data you want to associate with the errorbarseries object (including cell arrays and structures). The errorbarseries object does not set values for this property, but you can access it using the set and get functions.

Visibility of errorbarseries object and its children. By default, errorbarseries object visibility is on. This means all children of the errorbarseries object are visible unless the child object's Visible property is set to off. Setting an errorbarseries object's Visible property to off also makes its children invisible.

X-coordinates of the curve. The errorbar function plots a curve using the x-axis coordinates in the XData array. XData must be the same size as YData.

If you do not specify XData (i.e., the input argument x), the errorbar function uses the indices of YData to create the curve. See the XDataMode property for related information.

Use automatic or user-specified x-axis values. If you specify XData (by setting the XData property or specifying the input argument x), the errorbar function sets this property to manual.

If you set XDataMode to auto after having specified XData, the errorbar function resets the x tick-mark labels to the indices of the YData.

Link XData to MATLAB variable. Set this property to a MATLAB variable that is evaluated in the base workspace to generate the XData.

MATLAB reevaluates this property only when you set it. Therefore, a change to workspace variables appearing in an expression does not change XData.

You can use the refreshdata function to force an update of the object's data. refreshdata also enables you to specify that the data source variable be evaluated in the workspace of a function from which you call refreshdata.

See the refreshdata reference page for more information.

Note    If you change one data source property to a variable that contains data of a different dimension, you might cause the function to generate a warning and not render the graph until you have changed all data source properties to appropriate values.

Data defining curve. YData contains the data defining the curve. If YData is a matrix, the errorbar function displays a curve with error bars for each column in the matrix.

The input argument Y in the errorbar function calling syntax assigns values to YData.

Link YData to MATLAB variable. Set this property to a MATLAB variable that is evaluated in the base workspace to generate the YData.

MATLAB reevaluates this property only when you set it. Therefore, a change to workspace variables appearing in an expression does not change YData.

You can use the refreshdata function to force an update of the object's data. refreshdata also enables you to specify that the data source variable be evaluated in the workspace of a function from which you call refreshdata.

See the refreshdata reference page for more information.

Note    If you change one data source property to a variable that contains data of a different dimension, you might cause the function to generate a warning and not render the graph until you have changed all data source properties to appropriate values.

errorbar

errordlg

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