Why is my subplot legend empty when I run my script using MATLAB 2021b but it is okay when run with R2020b?

  subplot(1,2,1);
    % bring up legend outside of plot area and move to desired position
    legend_handle = legend('','','','','','','','');  
    set(legend_handle,'Location','EastOutside'); %% %  <<<<< The legend appears here for R2020b but NOT for R2021b
    set(legend_handle,'Orientation','vertical'); 
    set(legend_handle,'FontSize',8);
    % move subplot to the left in figure and resize width
    pos = get(gca,'Position'); % natural positions for subplot 0.13, 0.11, 0.2597, 0.815
    set(gca,'Position',pos); % move subplot to the left in figure and resize width
   Legend_Sting = {'Travel Range','Retract Stops','Insert Stops','Offsets','SW Retract Limit','SW Insert Limit','Max Retract Limit','Min Insert Limit',''};
    % move the legend position so it is to the right of plot near bottom of figure
    set(legend_handle,'String',Legend_Sting);
    Legend_Position = [0.52,0.08,0.2,0.2];
    set(legend_handle,'Position',Legend_Position);
    

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

    legend_handle = legend('','','','','','','','');  

At some point, legend() changed so that specifying '' as the legend string caused the legend to be turned off for that entry, rather than creating a legend entry that happened to have a corresponding character vector.

Thus you are turning off the legend for 8 entries -- so those entries do not exist for you to manipulate the string property.

When I test your code in R2022a, an empty legend box is generated.

[John Lauria]

Thank you Walter. I replaced the empty strings which at this point were only placeholders with some real ascii characters and that fixed my problem!

legend_handle = legend('a','b','c','d','e','f','g','h'); % placeholders