MATLAB Errorbars linestyle

Question

When using MATLAB, does anyone know a way for drawing errorbars with the same style of the data line?

For example, when using:

d = errorbar(x,y,y_error,'Linestyle', ':');

MATLAB returns the data lines in dotted style, while the bars in each of the points are solid lines. How do I make the bars also be a dotted line?

Answer 1

You can use the undocumented Bar property of the ErrorBar object to set the line style:

d = errorbar(1:3, 1:3, 1:3, 'LineStyle', ':');

% Make the vertical bars dotted as well
d.Bar.LineStyle = 'dotted';

% Valid values include: 'solid' | 'dashed' |  'dotted' | 'dashdot' | 'none'

Or if you just want it to be the same as the LineStyle you specified you could also use the undocumented Line property:

d.Bar.LineStyle = d.Line.LineStyle

For future reference, you can get a list of all properties and methods for a graphics object (undocumented or not) by obtaining the meta.class for the object:

cls = meta.class.fromName(class(d));

% List of all properties
cls.PropertyList

% List of all methods
cls.MethodList

You can often find and modify the various pieces of a complex plot object using undocumented properties found in this way.