Show time in x axis with increments of 10minutes

Hello,

I was wondering whether it is possible to plot a graph with time on x axis that varies with 10 minute (or 15 minute or 20 minute) increment (i.e. as per our choice). For instance, I have two times:

t_start = 10-Jun-2015 03:30:00 (which is the start time)

t_end = 10-Jun-2015 05:00:00 (is the end time)

How can I have a plot with x axis containing ticks such as 03:30, 03:40, 03:50........04:40, 04:50, 05:00.

I tried:

xtks = linspace(t_start, t_end, 20);
xticks(xtks);
xlim([t_start, t_end]);
datetick('x','HH:MM','keepticks', 'keeplimits');

But this just produces an x axis with 20 equally divided ticks (not increments as shown above). I tried with 10, 15, etc instead of 20 for xtks but still it does'not come out as expected.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks

[Walter Roberson]

Is your t_start and t_end in the form of serial date numbers or in the form of datetime() objects? datetick() is only used for serial date numbers.

[Mathan]

Both of them simply look like this (has this exact format and not decimal format):

t_start = '10-Jun-2015 03:30:00'

t_end = '10-Jun-2015 05:00:00'

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

t_start = datetime('10-Jun-2015 03:30:00'); %(which is the start time)
t_end = datetime('10-Jun-2015 05:00:00'); %(is the end time)

t = t_start : minutes(1) : t_end;
ndata = length(t);
data = rand(1, ndata);

plot(t, data);
xticks(t_start:minutes(15):t_end);

[Mathan]

Perfect! Thank you so much - really helps!

[Mathan]

Out of curiosity, had it been the decimal datetime format, will datetick('x','HH:MM','keepticks', 'keeplimits') work for giving increments in 10 minutes?

[Walter Roberson]

For serial date numbers,

incr = increment_in_minutes/(24*60)
xticks(t_start:incr:t_end)

and then datetick() like you show

Ideally in both cases more work should be done to round t_start to the start of the desired period, so you do not have the risk of ticks at (say) 3:17, 3:27, 3:37 and so on if the data happened to end like that. dateshift() can help for that.

[Mathan]

Thank you again.