Can figure numbers be re-assigned?

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K E
K E on 9 Jun 2014
Edited: Matt J on 13 Feb 2024
Is it possible to re-assign a figure number , for example if I have a Figure 55 open, can I make it Figure 2 as long as I don't already have a Figure 2 open? If so how do I do this?
I have a routine that generates 60+ figures, and I delete all but 3 interesting ones. I would like to make them Figures 1,2,3 because I need to re-run the routine and generate another set of figures, and I'd like the first set to appear together in the figure order (it makes them easier to keep track of).
  1 Comment
Matt J
Matt J on 13 Feb 2024
Edited: Matt J on 13 Feb 2024
No perfect solutions yet, unfortunately. I really hope TMW implements this capability. It seems like such a basic thing to want to do.

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Accepted Answer

José-Luis
José-Luis on 9 Jun 2014
Edited: José-Luis on 9 Jun 2014
To get a list of all the existing figures:
get(0,'Children');
If figure two does not exist and you want to copy figure(55):
figure(2)
copyobj(allchild(55),2);
Get rid of figure(55):
clf(55);
And to answer your question directly. I believe once a figure number is set, you have to live with it. But there are workarounds, such as the one above.
  1 Comment
K E
K E on 9 Jun 2014
Edited: K E on 9 Jun 2014
Perfect. Here is how I modified your code to automatically reassign all open figure numbers - I know that's not what my question asked, but perhaps it will help someone else.
% Get a list of all existing figures
figList = sort(get(0,'Children'));
for iOld = 1:length(figList)
figOld = figList(iOld); % This is a figure to replace
% Used later to make sure size of figure is correct
posOld = get(figOld, 'pos');
figNew = figure; % Make new figure
% Used later to make figure appear at
% default horizontal position on screen
posNew = get(figNew, 'pos');
% Copy over lines (but not formatting)
copyobj(allchild(figList(iOld)),figNew);
% Reproduce figure name and size however don't move it horizontally
set(figNew, 'Name', get(figOld, 'Name'), ...
'pos', [posNew(1:2) posOld(3:4)]);
% Get rid of old figure
close(figList(iOld));
end

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More Answers (2)

Joseph Cheng
Joseph Cheng on 9 Jun 2014
Edited: Joseph Cheng on 9 Jun 2014
This maybe a bit hard to implemented based on how you're selecting the 3 interesting ones but the function copyobj() will do the trick.
x = randi(10,1,5);
h1 = figure(1),plot(x);
figure(100);
h2 = gcf;
copyobj(allchild(h1),h2);
Here i create a random plot in figure 1. and then using gcf i get figure 100 and copy figure 1 to figure 100.

Matt J
Matt J on 13 Feb 2024
Edited: Matt J on 13 Feb 2024
The only reliable way that I have found, one which avoids copyobj and keeps all the figure formatting, is to save all open figures to a temporary .fig file and then reload i. The reloaded figures will always be numbered sequentially starting at the first available fig number.
H=findobj(groot,'Type','figure'); %Get all open figures
tn=tempname('.')+".fig"; %generate temporary name
savefig(H,tn)
close all
openfig(tn); delete(tn);

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