how to set xrange of a bar plot?

I have vector data (v) with length 20, but bar(v) displays a plot with range 1-25 which is very ugly! Why? And how to solve this problem?

Answer 1

[dpb]

xlim([0 21])
set(gca,'xtick',[1 5:5:20])

I often will set the xlim values to some fractional value other than [0 N+1] as above to make the whitespace closely approximate that between the bars but it's a matter of taste. I didn't try to put all the tick mark values in as they get a little cluttered sometimes; again "salt to suit"...

[dpb]

You would think bar and friends could be a lot smarter about scaling the x-axis automagically than they are, though, agreed. Perhaps you could couch this as an enhancement suggestion and submit it at the "official" TMW site at www.mathworks.com