Boxplot using cell array where each cell has different size

Hello to everyone!

I would like to obtain a single graph with boxplots using a 1x40 cell array, each cell has a different number of elements (vectors of type double) and represents observations for a single year .

I would like to group the boxplots from year 1981 to 2020 in a single graph.

Hope that my question is clear, thank you!

Answer 1

[dpb]

Fill each cell with NaN to the same size vector and then convert to an array. boxplot will ignore the NaN missing value indicators.

[Enrico Gambini]

So there's no way to obtain the boxplot with different sizes in the cell array?

[dpb]

boxplot() is written to take a double array, not cell array, so not simply, no. It's easy enough to just augment the data and the result is/will be the same.

The alternative is to add each on top of an existing axes; the code to do that would be more complex than just rounding out the existing data.

[Enrico Gambini]

Ok thank you!

Answer 2

[Adam Danz]

boxplotGroup from the file exchange will accept the cell array you described.

c = arrayfun(@(i){rand(randi([5,20]),1)},1:40)

c = 1×40 cell array
    {18×1 double}    {8×1 double}    {9×1 double}    {8×1 double}    {16×1 double}    {14×1 double}    {12×1 double}    {12×1 double}    {13×1 double}    {19×1 double}    {16×1 double}    {9×1 double}    {18×1 double}    {11×1 double}    {9×1 double}    {12×1 double}    {16×1 double}    {15×1 double}    {9×1 double}    {14×1 double}    {10×1 double}    {9×1 double}    {17×1 double}    {5×1 double}    {20×1 double}    {6×1 double}    {10×1 double}    {10×1 double}    {8×1 double}    {12×1 double}    {7×1 double}    {13×1 double}    {10×1 double}    {11×1 double}    {11×1 double}    {18×1 double}    {17×1 double}    {15×1 double}    {9×1 double}    {5×1 double}

years = compose('%d',1981:2020)

years = 1×40 cell array
    {'1981'}    {'1982'}    {'1983'}    {'1984'}    {'1985'}    {'1986'}    {'1987'}    {'1988'}    {'1989'}    {'1990'}    {'1991'}    {'1992'}    {'1993'}    {'1994'}    {'1995'}    {'1996'}    {'1997'}    {'1998'}    {'1999'}    {'2000'}    {'2001'}    {'2002'}    {'2003'}    {'2004'}    {'2005'}    {'2006'}    {'2007'}    {'2008'}    {'2009'}    {'2010'}    {'2011'}    {'2012'}    {'2013'}    {'2014'}    {'2015'}    {'2016'}    {'2017'}    {'2018'}    {'2019'}    {'2020'}

boxplotGroup(c, years)
xlabel('year')

[Enrico Gambini]

Thank you a lot!!!