# plot

## Purpose

Linear 2-D plot.

## Synopsis

    plot(Y)
    plot(X,Y)
    plot(X,Y,'linetype')
    plot(X1,Y1,'linetype1',X2,Y2,'linetype2',...)
    h = plot(...)

## Description

`plot(Y)` plots the columns of `Y` versus their index. If `Y` is complex, `plot(Y)` is equivalent to `plot(real(Y),imag(Y))`. In all other uses of `plot`, the imaginary part is ignored.

`plot(X,Y)` plots vector `X` versus vector `Y`. If `X` or `Y` is a matrix, then the vector is plotted versus the rows or columns of the matrix, whichever line up.

Various line types, plot symbols and colors can be obtained with `plot(X,Y,'linetype')` where `linetype` is a 1-, 2-, or 3-character string made from the following characters:

    ----------------------------
    .   point         y  yellow
    o   circle        m  magenta
    x   x-mark        c  cyan
    +   plus          r  red
    *   star          g  green
    -   solid line    b  blue
    :   dotted line   w  white
    -.  dashdot line  k  black
    -  dashed line
    ----------------------------

For example, `plot(X,Y,'c+')` plots a cyan plus at each data point.

`plot(X1,Y1,'linetype1',X2,Y2,'linetype2',...)` combines the plots defined by the `(X,Y,linetype1')` triples, where the `X`'s and `Y`'s are vectors or matrices and the `linetypes` are strings.

For example, `plot(X,Y,'-',X,Y,'go')` plots the data twice, with a solid yellow line interpolating green circles at the data points.

The `plot` command, if no color is specified, makes automatic use of the colors in the above table. The default is yellow for one line, and for multiple lines, to cycle through the first six colors in the table.

`h = plot(...)` returns a column vector of handles to `line` objects, one handle per line. The `line` objects that `plot` creates are children of the current `axes`.

The `X`,`Y` pairs, or `X`, `Y`, `linetype` triples, can be followed by parameter value pairs to specify additional properties of the lines. See `line` for more information.

## Examples

The statements

    x = -pi:pi/500:pi;
    y = tan(sin(x)) - sin(tan(x));
    plot(x,y)

produce

## See Also

    axis, grid, hold, line, loglog, polar, semilogx, semilogy, subplot,
    title, xlabel, ylabel

(c) Copyright 1994 by The MathWorks, Inc.