how to put dates in x-axis in subplots?

Hi. When I write this code, the graph attached appears. This is basically what I want to achieve. However, I want to add dates to the x-axis. I want the left graph to go from 1990 to end 2002 and the right graph to go from beginning 2003 to 2016. I tried to to this with the second piece of code...but it simply does not work ... I can either get the dates but not the vertical lines or the vertical lines but the dates get all messy... Any ideas?

 figure                                                                      %#ok<NOPRT>
 subplot(1,2,1)
 p1 = plot(mDataPre(:,1),'k');
 set(p1,'Color','black','LineWidth',1.5)
 title('Graph1')
 hold on
 p2 = plot([peaks peaks],get(gca,'YLim'),'c--^');
 set(p2,'Color','black','LineWidth',1)
 hold on
 p3 = plot([troughs troughs],get(gca,'YLim'),'r--v');
 set(p3,'Color','red','LineWidth',1)
 axis tight
 subplot(1,2,2)
 plot(mDataPost(:,1))
 p4 = plot(mDataPost(:,1),'k');
 set(p4,'Color','black','LineWidth',1.5)
 title('Graph 2')
 hold on
 p5 = plot([peaks2 peaks2],get(gca,'YLim'),'c--^');
 set(p5,'Color','black','LineWidth',1)
 hold on
 p6 = plot([troughs2 troughs2],get(gca,'YLim'),'r--v');
 set(p6,'Color','red','LineWidth',1)
 xlabel('Years')
 axis tight

My code with dates:

t1 = size(mBBpre,1);
t2 = size(mBBpost,1);

 XSource1 = linspace(datenum('01/01/1990'), datenum('12/12/2002'), t1);
 XSource2 = linspace(datenum('01/01/2003'), datenum('01/02/2016'), t2);

 figure                                                                      %#ok<NOPRT>

 subplot(1,2,1)
 p1 = plot(XSource1,mDataPre(:,1),'k');
 set(p1,'Color','black','LineWidth',1.5)
 title('Graph1')
 axis tight
 hold on
 p2 = plot([peaks peaks],get(gca,'YLim'),'c--^');
 set(p2,'Color','black','LineWidth',1)
 hold on
 p3 = plot([troughs troughs],get(gca,'YLim'),'r--v');
 set(p3,'Color','red','LineWidth',1)
 set(gca, 'XTick', linspace(datenum('01/01/1990'), datenum('12/12/2002'),8))
 datetick('x', 'yyyy', 'keeplimits', 'keepticks')
 xlabel('Years')

 subplot(1,2,2)
 p4 = plot(XSource2, mDataPost(:,1),'k');
 set(p4,'Color','black','LineWidth',1.5)
 title('Graph2')
 axis tight
 hold on
 p5 = plot([peaks2 peaks2],get(gca,'YLim'),'c--^');
 set(p5,'Color','black','LineWidth',1)
 hold on
 p6 = plot([troughs2 troughs2],get(gca,'YLim'),'r--v');
 set(p6,'Color','red','LineWidth',1)
 set(gca, 'XTick', linspace(datenum('01/01/2003'), datenum('01/02/2016'),8))
 datetick('x', 'yyyy', 'keeplimits', 'keepticks')
 xlabel('Years')

[James Grayot]

anyone? if I did not explain something clearly, please let me know!

[Star Strider]

We can’t run your code because we don’t have your data.

If you can create a simulation that exhibits the behaviour you observed and that doesn’t involve uploading your data, that would work. the datetick function can sometimes behave stragely, so that using a text object instead is sometimes preferable.

Answer 1

[Peter Perkins]

James, if you're using R2014b or later, you should try using datetime, not datenum. There's plotting functionality built around datetime that may solve your issues.