Help: How to add a label (cell 1 x 20) to each bar (total 20 bars) in a bar plot where the bar plot has a 1x 2 dimension?

Hi everybody,

I would like to start by saying that I have already searched in the community for an answer to my question, since apparently the topic has been already well explored, but unofrtunately I did not find any satisfactory answer. Secondly, I am not a Matlab expert so So I am asking for your precious help. I would like to add to my bar plot, and specifically to the top of each bar, some labels stored in a cell array (1 x 20). The total number of bars is 20 and each two bars have been plotted with a common x. Here you can find an example of what I want to plot (coming from Excel).

The generalisation of my code is the folowing one:

% Definition of x axis 
x = {'CLTref';'CLT1';'CLT5';'M1';'M2';'F1';'F2';'F3';'R1';'R2'};
% Definition of y axis with random values
y1=[1 1 ; 2 2; 2 2; 2 2; 2 2; 2 2; 2 2; 2 2; 2 2; 2 2 ];
% plot
p1=bar(y1);
%set x labels
set(gca, 'XTickLabel',x, 'XTick',1:numel(x))
%%%%% or I could have done also p1=bar(x,y1)! %%%%%%%%%

Now I would like to add these labels to each bar:

labels={'A', 'B', 'C', 'D','E', 'F', 'G', 'D','A', 'B', 'C', 'D','A', 'B','C', 'D','A', 'B', 'C', 'D'}'

;

.....the problem is that with all the codes found here in the community i have a dimension problem. E.g., I copied randomly these code, that many people were suggesting:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

hT=[];              % placeholder for text object handles
for i=1:length(p1)  % iterate over number of bar objects
  hT=[hT,text(p1(i).XData+p1(i).XOffset,p1(i).YData,labels(:,i), ...
          'VerticalAlignment','bottom','horizontalalign','center')];
end

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

when I run it I always get an error. I still do not know how to handle the bar object and its properties. If someone has already a solution, I would be grateful.

Maja

Answer 1

[Stephan]

Try:

labels=reshape({'A', 'B', 'C', 'D','E', 'F', 'G', 'D','A', 'B', 'C', 'D','A', 'B',...
    'C', 'D','A', 'B', 'C', 'D'}',10,2)

labels = 10×2 cell array
    {'A'}    {'C'}
    {'B'}    {'D'}
    {'C'}    {'A'}
    {'D'}    {'B'}
    {'E'}    {'C'}
    {'F'}    {'D'}
    {'G'}    {'A'}
    {'D'}    {'B'}
    {'A'}    {'C'}
    {'B'}    {'D'}

or complete:

% Definition of x axis 
x = {'CLTref';'CLT1';'CLT5';'M1';'M2';'F1';'F2';'F3';'R1';'R2'};
% Definition of y axis with random values
y1=[1 1 ; 2 2; 2 2; 2 2; 2 2; 2 2; 2 2; 2 2; 2 2; 2 2 ];
% plot
p1=bar(y1);
%set x labels
set(gca, 'XTickLabel',x, 'XTick',1:numel(x))
%%%%% or I could have done also p1=bar(x,y1)! %%%%%%%%%

labels=reshape({'A', 'B', 'C', 'D','E', 'F', 'G', 'D','A', 'B', 'C', 'D','A', 'B',...
    'C', 'D','A', 'B', 'C', 'D'}',10,2);

hT=[];              % placeholder for text object handles
for i=1:length(p1)  % iterate over number of bar objects
  hT=[hT,text(p1(i).XData+p1(i).XOffset,p1(i).YData,labels(:,i), ...
          'VerticalAlignment','bottom','horizontalalign','center')];
end

[Stephan]

if you need it in the other order use:

% Definition of x axis 
x = {'CLTref';'CLT1';'CLT5';'M1';'M2';'F1';'F2';'F3';'R1';'R2'};
% Definition of y axis with random values
y1=[1 1 ; 2 2; 2 2; 2 2; 2 2; 2 2; 2 2; 2 2; 2 2; 2 2 ];
% plot
p1=bar(y1);
%set x labels
set(gca, 'XTickLabel',x, 'XTick',1:numel(x))
%%%%% or I could have done also p1=bar(x,y1)! %%%%%%%%%

labels=reshape({'A', 'B', 'C', 'D','E', 'F', 'G', 'D','A', 'B', 'C', 'D','A', 'B',...
    'C', 'D','A', 'B', 'C', 'D'},2,10)'

labels = 10×2 cell array
    {'A'}    {'B'}
    {'C'}    {'D'}
    {'E'}    {'F'}
    {'G'}    {'D'}
    {'A'}    {'B'}
    {'C'}    {'D'}
    {'A'}    {'B'}
    {'C'}    {'D'}
    {'A'}    {'B'}
    {'C'}    {'D'}

hT=[];              % placeholder for text object handles
for i=1:length(p1)  % iterate over number of bar objects
  hT=[hT,text(p1(i).XData+p1(i).XOffset,p1(i).YData,labels(:,i), ...
          'VerticalAlignment','bottom','horizontalalign','center')];
end

[Maja Danovska]

Thank you very much Stephan!!

It works finally. A really useful example.