Add grid lines but leave x tick labels unchanged

I want to be able to change the grid lines on a plot, but leave the tick labels udner matlab control; I have used this, but it also changes the tick labels.

grid minor
%get current tics
xtic=get(gca,'xtick')
%Add my grid lines
set(gca,'xtick',[min(xreal):realPitch:max(xreal)],'XTickLabel','')
%put back original ticks
set(gca,'XTickLabel',xtic');

I want to kept he xlabels under matlab control to stop the overcrowding as above, but I want to be able to zoom in and use the grid lines to look more closely as the two sets of data, hence I need to change just the grid lines

Is this possible? Thanks

[Jason]

Thought I had done done it, thinking you must convert the default xtics to a cell array!

xtic=cellstr(get(gca,'xtick'))

But then get the error 'Input must be a string'

[Oscar Miguel Escrig]

Hope it works:

Try to workaround the issue by creating another axis with the same relevant properties than the original, without background color and in the same position (if daspect or axis square was used repeat for this new axis). Then modify ticklabels and gridding in different axes according to your needs. Don't forget to linkaxes if you use the scope.

Somethig like this:

antax=gca;

newax=axes('Position',antax.Position,'Color','none','XLim',antax.XLim,'YLim',antax.YLim);

% modify ticklabels and gridding in different axes

linkaxes([antax newax],'xy');

Answer 1

[Geoff Hayes]

Jason - I think that there has to be a one-to-one "mapping" between the ticks and the labels else MATLAB will cycle through the set of labels. See http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/92565-how-do-i-control-axis-tick-labels-limits-and-axes-tick-locations for details. I noticed this behaviour when I extracted the current set of labels

 xTickLabels = cellstr(get(gca,'XTickLabel'));

and then created 10 times as many ticks. I think what you will need to do is take the original set of labels and insert empty strings for each of the new ticks that you have created (assuming that the new set of ticks contains the set of original ticks and their labels).

[Jason]

Thanks Geoff. Jason