Matlab plotting with Dates - matlab

Question

The code below works fine as is, however I need to be able to change the start and end dates to be any given calendar date. So rather than run from 2002:2003 I would like to have it run from '15/Aug/2001' to '14/Aug/2002'. In addition I would like the y-axis to display these new dates.
The actual number of days between then will not be the same as calendar says but rather 255 days (in this case) I will have to enter the information manually.
It seems to be datetick can help but I cannot get it to fit into the framework below:
I know I've already asked a few questions on this piece of code but this will be the last one!
tchange=(1/(255-1));
x = 2002:tchange:2003; % x data
grad_ = rand(1,length(x))*.3; % graduated stuff
grad_2 = rand(1,length(x))*.3;
grad_3= rand(1,length(x))*.3;
h = subplot(1,3,1);
%plot(grad_,x); % flip x and y for vertical plot
herrorbar(grad_,x,grad_2,grad_3,'.');
axis(h, [0 0.5 2002 2003])
set(h, 'Ytick', x(1):x(end), 'Xtick', 0:.1:.5, 'YDir','reverse', 'YGrid', 'on');
xlabel('Gradient Search')
diff_ = rand(1,length(x)).^2 *.15; % differential stuff
h = subplot(1,3,2);
herrorbar(diff_,x,grad_2,grad_3,'.');
%plot(diff_,x);
set(h,'yticklabel',[], 'Ytick', x(1):x(end), 'Xtick', 0:.1:.5, 'YDir','reverse', 'YGrid', 'on');
axis(h, [0 0.5 2002 2003])
xlabel('Differential Evolution')
delta_ = rand(1,length(x)).^2 *.2 - .2; % delta stuff
h = subplot(1,3,3);
%plot(delta_,x);
stem(x,delta_median_LP(1:npoints,1),'Marker','.');
axis(h, [2002 2003 -.5 .5])
set(h,'Xtick', -.5:.5:.5, 'XGrid', 'on');
view(90,90);
ylabel('\Delta of medians')

Answer 1

You should be able to use MATLAB's datenum function, combined with the datetick function. For instance, for the first plot, you could do the following:
x = datenum(2001,8,15):datenum(2002,8,14); % x data
grad_ = rand(1,length(x))*.3; % graduated stuff
grad_2 = rand(1,length(x))*.3;
grad_3= rand(1,length(x))*.3;
h = subplot(1,3,1);
plot(grad_,x); % flip x and y for vertical plot
% herrorbar(grad_,x,grad_2,grad_3,'.');
axis(h, [0 0.5 x(1) x(end)])
set(h, 'Xtick', 0:.1:.5, 'YDir','reverse', 'YGrid', 'on');
datetick('y',24,'keeplimits');
xlabel('Gradient Search')
I remove the ytick part of the set command so that it uses the default, which isn't too bad in this case, but you could set it to whatever you wanted.