How to remove white space from beginning of a plot and adjust x-axis to start from 'January'?

I have a plot with monthly data over multiple years. But there is a white space in the beginning of the plot that I want to remove. If I use 'axis tight' or 'xlim([1 12])', then 'January' from the x-axis disappears (refer to image 'Temp_fig.jpg'). I want the x axis as 'Jan Feb Mar Apr Oct Nov Dec'.

T = table(datestr(Temp6ONDJFMAcorrect.DATE,'dd/mm/yyyy',),Temp6ONDJFMAcorrect.Temp);
[y,m,d] = datevec(T.Var1,'dd/mm/yyyy');
Tdate = table(y,m,d,'VariableName',{'year','month','day'});
TT = [Tdate,T(:,{'Var2'})];
TT.Properties.VariableName{4} = 'Temp';
yrs = TT.year;
yr = ismember(str2double(string(TT.year)),yrs);
x = reshape(TT.monthly(yr),7,[]);
y = reshape(TT.Temp(yr),7,[]);
plot(x,y)
xticklabels({'Jan', 'Feb','Mar','Apr','Oct','Nov','Dec'})
%% xlim([1,12]) %% this removes the white space but 'Jan' from x-ticks also disappears (see 'Temp_fig_1.jpg')

Answer 1

[VBBV]

xticks(1:7)
xticklabels({'Jan', 'Feb','Mar','Apr','Oct','Nov','Dec'})

You can try the above

[Anwesha Sharma]

It's still not working, the axis labels are not equally spaced and there is still a space in front of the plot after I run:

xticks(1:7)

xticklabels({'Jan', 'Feb','Mar','Apr','Oct','Nov','Dec'}) .

I am not sure how to fix that.

[VBBV]

plot(1:7)  % your plot
xlim([1 12]) % try with both
xticks(1:12)  % use 1:12 instead of 1:7
xticklabels({'Jan', 'Feb','Mar','Apr','Oct','Nov','Dec'})

Answer 2

[Cris LaPierre]

Perhaps a bit more difficult to understand at first, but here's another way to do it using findgroups and splitapply.

file = 'https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/uploaded_files/1295380/Temp_6_ONDJFMA_correct.csv';
opts = detectImportOptions(file);
opts = setvaropts(opts, "DATE","InputFormat","dd/MM/yyyy");
T = readtable(file,opts);

% Need to create x values that are shared across all years so they overlap
% Here, I create a copy of DATE and change the year so all are 1960
T.plotDATE = T.DATE;
T.plotDATE.Year = year(T.DATE(1))

T = 441×3 table
       DATE        Temp       plotDATE 
    __________    _______    __________

    01/01/1960    -5.6962    01/01/1960
    01/02/1960    -10.261    01/02/1960
    01/03/1960    -16.191    01/03/1960
    01/04/1960    -21.453    01/04/1960
    01/10/1960    -19.267    01/10/1960
    01/11/1960    -12.483    01/11/1960
    01/12/1960    -8.3811    01/12/1960
    01/01/1961    -9.1333    01/01/1960
    01/02/1961    -8.1571    01/02/1960
    01/03/1961    -21.066    01/03/1960
    01/04/1961    -20.587    01/04/1960
    01/10/1961    -17.296    01/10/1960
    01/11/1961    -9.8484    01/11/1960
    01/12/1961    -8.5044    01/12/1960
    01/01/1962    -8.6625    01/01/1960
    01/02/1962    -12.851    01/02/1960

% Find groups
G = findgroups(year(T.DATE));

% Plot. Need 'figure' since 'hold on' is used before first plot command
figure
hold on
splitapply(@(x,y)plot(x,y),T(:,["plotDATE","Temp"]),G)
hold off

% A datetime axis will include the year. This removes that by manually
% labeling X Ticks
ax = gca;
xlbls = ax.XTickLabel;
ax.XTickLabel = xlbls;

Since you have to manually label the XTicks anyway, another way to do this is create a Month column with the month names as categoricals. The categorical function lets you specify an ordered set. The plot is a little bit different (space between Y axis and Jan)

T2 = readtable(file,opts);
T2.Month = categorical(month(T2.DATE,"monthofyear"),...
    1:12,{'Jan','Feb','Mar','Arp','May','Jun','Jul','Aug','Sep','Oct','Nov','Dec'})

T2 = 441×3 table
       DATE        Temp      Month
    __________    _______    _____

    01/01/1960    -5.6962     Jan 
    01/02/1960    -10.261     Feb 
    01/03/1960    -16.191     Mar 
    01/04/1960    -21.453     Arp 
    01/10/1960    -19.267     Oct 
    01/11/1960    -12.483     Nov 
    01/12/1960    -8.3811     Dec 
    01/01/1961    -9.1333     Jan 
    01/02/1961    -8.1571     Feb 
    01/03/1961    -21.066     Mar 
    01/04/1961    -20.587     Arp 
    01/10/1961    -17.296     Oct 
    01/11/1961    -9.8484     Nov 
    01/12/1961    -8.5044     Dec 
    01/01/1962    -8.6625     Jan 
    01/02/1962    -12.851     Feb 

G = findgroups(year(T2.DATE));

figure
hold on
splitapply(@(x,y)plot(x,y),T2(:,["Month","Temp"]),G)
hold off

[Anwesha Sharma]

Thank you so much, this is very cool.