Prevent Non-integer Tick Marks

I am writing a library that includes function that plots discrete data that always aligns with integers on the x-axis. Including tick marks at decimal values between integers is potentially confusing to users so I'd like to hide them. How can I prevent MATLAB from adding ticks at non-integer values?

For given axes, it is easy enough to remove all of the tick non-integer tick marks, as follows:

ax = gca();

xtick_values = ax.XTick;

integer_indices = fix(xtick_values) == xtick_values;

ax.XTick = xtick_values(integer_indices);

The problem with this, is that it does not update if a user drags the plot to a region where there are no tick marks.

I would prefer a solution that is compatible back to MATLAB R2014b, but if that's too difficult, I'll take what I can get.

Answer 1

[Paul Wintz]

I was able to develop the following solution to my question:

clf

ax = gca;

xlim([0, 3]) % Create an axes with x in [0, 3]. This has ticks at every 0.5.

% Hide non-integer ticks.

removeNonintegerTicks(ax.XAxis)

% Setup a callback to handle when the limits change.

ax.XAxis.LimitsChangedFcn = @removeNonintegerTicks;

function removeNonintegerTicks(ruler,~)

% Make ruler value mode automatic, momentaryily, (if it isn't already)

% so that the location of the tick marks are recomputed.

ruler.TickValuesMode = 'auto';

% Now, hide any tick marks that are not integers.

tick_values = ruler.TickValues;

% Sometimes the '0' tick mark is off by ~1e-17, so we use a small range of

% values.

integer_indices = abs(fix(tick_values) - tick_values) < 1e-12;

% Keep only the (approximately) integer values.

ruler.TickValues = tick_values(integer_indices);

end