Re: plot templates and options lists for set, plot etc.

[Ben Abbott]

On Jun 6, 2009, at 12:43 PM, Thorsten Meyer wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Ben Abbott wrote:
> > On Jun 6, 2009, at 11:21 AM, Thorsten Meyer wrote:
> >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > at work, I often have to generate the same kind of plots with
> > > particular labels,
> > > line styles, etc.. I would like to create templates for these plots.
> > > For this, I
> > > collect plot options in a struct like it is returned by the get
> > > function. E.g.
> > > style = struct("linewidth", 2, "marker", "x", "markersize", 12);
> > >
> > > Now, I want to pass these options to the plot function. At the
> > > moment, I do it
> > > like this:
> > > plot(1:5, 5:-1:1, {fieldnames(style)'{:}; struct2cell(style)'{:}} 
> > > {:});
> > >
> > > [...]
> >
> > Would you prefer the approach below?
> >
> >    props = {"color", [0 1 0], "marker", "s"}
> >    h = plot (1:10);
> >    set (h, props{:})
> >
> > If you want to continue to use your structure, you can populate props
> > by ...
> >
> >    props = [fieldnames(style), struct2cell(style)];
> >
> > But that is not really very different from what you're already doing.
> Yes, I have seen, that the options are collected into a cell array
> within the plot functions. However, keeping the options in a structure
> has the advantage, that I can easily access and set the individual
> options, e.g. to transform one plot template into a new one,  etc.
> Also, how are graphic objects realized internally? Aren't they also
> structures? It always seemed quite strange to me, that the get()
> function returns a structure, while all the functions setting handle
> options take lists of key, value,... as input arguments...
>
> Thorsten

Hmmm ... when I first began using set/get, I had assumed that s=get(h)  
would be reciprocated by set(h,s). Of course there are problems with  
that example due to some properties being read-only.

However, isn't the functionality below what you're looking for?

style = struct("linewidth", 2, "marker", "x", "markersize", 12);
h = plot (1:10)
set (h, style)

I don't see any problem with compatibility. If set() were an m-file,  
such a change would take me a few minutes, but with c/c++, I won't be  
much help proposing a patch.

Ben