Reversing y axis direction causes xticks to invert and overlap with labels

I just switched from 2015a to 2018b and encounted a problem with the xticks and corresponding labels whenever I invert the y-axis. The Xtick direction seems reversed from the set value (in or out) and they overlap with the labels. I have no clue how to fix this.

Thanks!

subplot(1,3,1)
plot(rand(10,1),rand(10,1).*(1E-8))

subplot(1,3,2)
plot(rand(10,1),rand(10,1).*(1E-8))
set(gca,'Ydir','reverse')

subplot(1,3,3)

plot(rand(10,1),rand(10,1).*(1E-8))
set(gca,'Ydir','reverse')
set(gca,'TickDir','out')

[Star Strider]

That’s definitely a bug.

Use the ‘Contact Us’ link at the top right corner of this page to report it. Include a link to the URL of your Question here so you don’t have to repeat it.

[Kelly Hokanson]

Thanks!

[Star Strider]

My pleasure!

Consider posting the MathWorks reply in a Comment here.

[Kelly Hokanson]

From the support team:

"I have been investigating the issue for a while now and unfortunately have not been able to come up with a workaround yet. I believe the issue is caused due to the presence of the exponent in the yaxis. The code snippet you provided on the MATLAB Answers page works as expected when (1E-8) exponent is not present.

If the exponent value of the y data is known previously, perhaps we could plot the y data without the exponent and specify the exponent in the ylabel. The following example shows how we may be able to achieve this.

>> f=figure;

>> x=1:10; y=rand(10, 1)*(1E-8);

>> Exp = max(floor(log10(y)));

>> plot(x, y*(10^-Exp));

>> ylabel(strcat(' x 10e', num2str(Exp)))

>> set(gca, 'Ydir', 'reverse')

Answer 1

[Samuel Coakley]

So I ran into the same problem and my solution is below.

Say you are plotting some data in A. Instead of plotting just A, plot -A and change the y tick labels. This means you don't have to reverse the axis so the x tick labels are still in the right place.

plot(1:length(A), -A)
yt = get(gca,'YTickLabel');
for ii=1:length(yt)
    ytt{ii} = yt{ii}(2:end); % This trims the minus sign from the negative numbers
end
set(gca, 'YTickLabel', ytt)

[Kelly Hokanson]

This has been addressed in the newest release

Answer 2

[Stefanie Schwarz]

This is a bug in R2018b that was fixed in R2019a. See the following Bug Report:

https://www.mathworks.com/support/bugreports/1832634

A workaround is to set the Y-axis label to text and insert spaces.

Example:

>> set(gca, 'YTickLabel', {'0  ', '1  ', '2  ', '3  ', '4  '})

Answer 3

[Robert Weigel]

Adding an empty subscript worked for the case when the x-tick labels have exponents.

    xtl = get(gca,'XTickLabel'); % {'10^{1}', '10^{2}'}
    for i = 1:length(xtl)
        xtl{i} = [xtl{i},'_{ }']; % Append empty subscript
    end
    set(gca,'XTickLabel',xtl);