Re: 'XTickLabel' - different type from Matlab's

[Ben Abbott]

On Nov 26, 2011, at 11:24 AM, J. Luis wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I noticed another difference in behavior towards Matlab regarding the 
> 'XTickLabel' axes property.
> 
> octave.exe:3> h=plot(rand(1,2))
> h = -1.5394
> octave.exe:4> get(get(h,'Parent'),'XTickLabel')
> ans =
> {
>  [1,1] = 1
>  [1,2] = 1.2
>  [1,3] = 1.4
>  [1,4] = 1.6
>  [1,5] = 1.8
>  [1,6] = 2
> }
> octave.exe:5> whos
> Variables in the current scope:
> 
>   Attr Name        Size                     Bytes  Class
>   ==== ====        ====                     =====  =====
>        ans         1x6                         14  cell
>        h           1x1                          8  double
> 
> When I do the same in ML I see that 'ans' is a char matrix
> 
> ans       11x3                66  char
> 
> Joaquim

This looks like a subtle incompatibility to me. In both ML and Octave the 
following render identical results ...

        set (gca, 'xticklabel', [0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1]
        xticklabel1 = get (gca, 'xticklabel');
        set (gca, 'xticklabel', '0|0.2|0.4|0.6|0.8|1')
        xticklabel2 = get (gca, 'xticklabel');
        set (gca, 'xticklabel', ['0 '; '0.2'; '0.4'; '0.6'; '0.8'; '1 '])
        xticklabel3 = get (gca, 'xticklabel');
        set (gca, 'xticklabel', {'0', '0.2', '0.4', '0.6', '0.8', '1'})
        xticklabel4 = get (gca, 'xticklabel');
        whos xticklabel1 xticklabel2 xticklabel3 xticklabel4

ML uses the 3rd variant for the default xticklabel values., and Octave uses the 
4th (1x6 cellstr)

Each set() statement works in both Octave and ML. However, the resulting values 
returned by the get() are different.

Octave returns ...

Variables in the current scope:

   Attr Name             Size                     Bytes  Class
   ==== ====             ====                     =====  ===== 
        xticklabel1      1x6                         48  double
        xticklabel2      1x19                        19  char
        xticklabel3      6x3                         18  char
        xticklabel4      1x6                         14  cell

And ML ...

  Name             Size            Bytes  Class    Attributes

  xticklabel1      6x3                36  char               
  xticklabel2      6x3                36  char               
  xticklabel3      6x3                36  char               
  xticklabel4      6x1               700  cell               

I see three differences.

(1) The default xticklabel values for ML are char, and are cell (cellstr) for 
Octave.

(2) ML converts the xticklabel with class double or char with "|" used as a 
delimiter to a char array. Octave returns the same class and format as was 
passed to set().

(3) ML converts a cellstr column vector to a row vector.

I've filed a bug report.

        https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?34906

Ben