How to have 2 legend entries for 1 set of data using bar plot?

I have a bar plot with 1 set of data and I colorized the bars to highlight some differences after a threshold. Now I would like to have 2 entries in the legend but I cant figure out how to do that.

Matlab recognizes there is only 1 set of data and adds only 1 legend entry. Smart Matlab...

Is there a way to disable this to? Or another suggestions?

% test data
data = 1:10;

% bar plot
bar_h = bar(data);

% colorize bars
bar_child = get(bar_h,'Children');

% create custom color map
mycolor=[0 0 1;1 0 0]; %set colors
colormap(mycolor)
blue = 1*(data<8);
red = 2*(data>=8);
index = blue + red;

% apply colors
set(bar_child,'CData',index);

% legend
legend('blue','red')

edit: added a picture of what I mean

Answer 1

[Star Strider]

One possibility:

% test data
data = 1:10;
data1 = data(data<8);
data2 = data(data>=8);

% bar plot
bar_h1 = bar([1:7], data1,'b');
hold on
bar_h2 = bar([8:10], data2,'r');
hold off
set(gca, 'XTick',[1:10])
legend('blue','red', 'Location','NW')

I’m using R2015a, so can’t use your ‘bar_child’ and related data and calls. The set call for the 'XTick' values was necessary because without it the ticks for [8:10] don’t plot for some reason, even when specifically stating them in the bar call. Weird.

EDIT — Added 'Location' to legend call.

[Norris]

Works like a charm!! Thanks so much. I did try to split the data into 2 sets of bars but didnt get it to work earlier.

Cheers.

[Star Strider]

My pleasure.

Plotting two sets of bars requires the hold function, to be certain the second set of bars does not overplot the first set. I too had problems getting it to work as I wanted it to, thus the set call. (There are also version differences between R2014a and earlier, and R2014b and later, so I did my best to provide a ‘universal’ approach.)