%% Add Month Labels to Plot and Preserve Number of Ticks
% Select a starting date.

startDate = datenum('01-01-2009');

%
% Select an ending date.

endDate = datenum('12-31-2009');

%
% Create a variable, xdata, that corresponds to the number of months between the start and end dates.

xData = linspace(startDate,endDate,12);

%
% Plot random data.

figure
stairs(xData,rand(1,12))

%
% Set the number of XTicks to the number of points in xData.

ax = gca;
ax.XTick = xData;

%
% Label the x-axis with month names, preserving the total number of ticks by using the 'keepticks' option.

datetick('x','mmm','keepticks')

% Copyright 2015 The MathWorks, Inc.