How to combine stacked bar chart and line chart?

I'm finding a way to combine a stacked bar chart and line chart look like this:

I have tried to use 2-axes graph in (https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/creating_plots/overlay-line-plot-on-bar-graph-using-different-y-axes-1.html)

and used the following code:

yyaxis left
b = bar(step,array,'stacked');

yyaxis right
p = plot(step,entropy);

But it seems not to work properly and the result is:

PS: I have 4 components in 1 bar. Sometimes, there's only 1 component presents inside the bar. The line graph works as expected though. Only the stacked bar has problems.

[randerss simil]

Can you show the array data ?

[Truong Nhu]

Yes, of course.

step = 1:1000:5073
array =

     0     0    15     0
     4     1    10     0
     0     0    15     0
     4     1    10     0
    15     0     0     0
     0     0    15     0

PS: In my opinion, matlab doesn't support to plot stacked bar on 2-axes graph. Maybe I need a work-around.

Answer 1

[dpb]

Seems to work fine here...

figure
hB=bar(step,array,'stacked');
ylim([0 16])
xlim(xlim+[1 -1]*500)
yyaxis right
hL=plot(step,randi(15,1,6),'*-r');

yielded

The figure you show must have had 10-gazillion x values to have made such a blob.

[Truong Nhu]

Thanks @dpb, this solved my problem.

To be more specific, whenever I add 'yyaxis left', the problem seems to occur. For example:

figure
yyaxis left % I added this line to regenerate the error
bar(step,array,'stacked');
ylim([0 16])
xlim(xlim+[1 -1]*500)
yyaxis right
plot(step,randi(15,1,6),'*-r');

It generates the figure without color for different stacks like this:

[dpb]

Hmmm...that's also reproducible here on R2019b; which release are you using?

I had never noticed a similar anomaly with the yyaxis pair before, but I've not used it all that extensively other than here in Answers so don't know that had ever tried a stacked bar plot before.

It isn't unique to the 'stacked' option, either; a regular bar doesn't show different bar colors either as it should.

This appears to be a bug, indeed. Submit a bug report using the "Contact Us" link <ContactTMW Link>

[Truong Nhu]

I'm using pre-release 2021a. Ok, I'll report this as a bug. Thanks a lot @dpb

Answer 2

[Cris LaPierre]

I reached out internally. This is the expected behavior, but it's also fairly simple to change this back to what you would have expected by setting the colororder back to 'default'.

step = 1:1000:5073;
array = [0     0    15     0
     4     1    10     0
     0     0    15     0
     4     1    10     0
    15     0     0     0
     0     0    15     0];
figure
yyaxis left % I added this line to regenerate the error
bar(step,array,'stacked');
ylim([0 16])
xlim(xlim+[1 -1]*500)
% reset colororder
colororder('default')

yyaxis right
plot(step,randi(15,1,6),'*-r');

[dpb]

Why on earth would it be "expected" behavior for a stacked bar plot to not have differing colors for the bar segments????

That makes no sense whatsoever...

[Truong Nhu]

Agree with @dpb, this should not be the expected behavior for a combined stack bar - line chart. And you should include "colororder = 'default'" in the manual. Because this type of stack bar - line chart is a pretty common one, other users may need this instruction.

[Cris LaPierre]

Stacked bar plots do, as you've shown above. It is the call to yyaxis that is changing axis properties. Expected behavior means the code is doing what it was written to do. It doesn't mean someone considered this exact scenario and decided this was what people would want. The feedback has been given. My purpose here was to provide a workaround while the feedback is considered.

[dpb]

Ah. A different defintion of "expected"... :) Thanks, Chris.