Exclude certain dates on x-axis using xlim or xtick?

I have attached my dataset and a plot to illustrate what I am trying to do. I would like to remove the blank spaces between the data to account for the fact that no data was collected between 5pm-8am. It would be useful to mark the boundary of each new day with a vertical line. Is there a way to do this?

% Create datasets for plotting (from y.mat)
backg = y(:,2);             
backg(y(:,4)~=0) = NaN;     
inter = y(:,2);             
inter(y(:,4)<1) = NaN;      
y_dt=datetime(y(:,1),'ConvertFrom','datenum');

% Plot 
figure(1)
bar(y_dt,backg,'g')
hold on
bar(y_dt,inter,'r')
plot(y_dt,y(:,3),'black'); %plot threshold

xlim([datetime(2020,2,5,08,0,0), datetime(2020,2,7,17,0,0)]); %filter to date range of interest

[dpb]

Not with the real datetime on the x-axis, no.

There are ways to work around the problem by plotting against ordinal values (which won't work if the time points aren't uniform) or by using datenum time-of-day and an arbitrary date and then fix up the tick labels manually.

All in all, it's a royal p(ain)it(proverbial)a(ppendage).

[Louise Wilson]

Haha. Typical because in my last question about plotting (https://au.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/1568318-discrepancy-between-datenum-and-datetime?s_tid=srchtitle) I was advised to always use datetime haha... jeez. Maybe I will try photoshop...

Answer 1

[the cyclist]

One possible solution to this would be to use a tiledlayout to plot each day in its own subplot.

[Louise Wilson]

I did consider this but it just doesn't look at good and takes up more space. A good back up though, thank you.

[the cyclist]

OK. FYI in case you don't know, you can make a tiled layout with no spacing between tiles, so it seems guaranteed to take less space (at least effectively) than what you posted here.

[Louise Wilson]

Nice, I will try that, thank you!