Using set(gca,'LineWidth', x) in MATLAB creates a new figure while original image have default width

Question

I am using set(gca,'LineWidth',2) in my Figure code and getting the two images. The original image is same but second one just have an axis with a width of 2. My code is as follows

clc; clear all ;

 set(gca,'LineWidth',2)

figure('DefaultAxesFontSize',30);
set(0,'DefaultAxesFontName',' Times  ');

hold on 
x1 =10:10:3000;

% % ---------- reading data -------%

arrival_rate = xlsread('scep.xlsx', 'comparing_thoughput_for123',   'A3:A10');
one_stream = xlsread('scep.xlsx', 'comparing_thoughput_for123',  'B3:B10');
two_stream = xlsread('scep.xlsx', 'comparing_thoughput_for123',      'C3:C10');


 x2 = interp1(arrival_rate,one_stream,x1,'pchip') ;
 x3 = interp1(arrival_rate,two_stream,x1,'pchip') ;

                    %    plotting throughput

%                          ------scep qos1 one_stream ------
plota = plot(x1,x2,'r-','DisplayName', ' Single Stream ', 'LineWidth',1);
plot(arrival_rate,one_stream,'ro', 'HandleVisibility','off','LineWidth',2);


%                          ------scep qos1 two_stream ------
plot(x1,x3,'b-','DisplayName', ' Two Streams ', 'LineWidth',1);
plot(arrival_rate,two_stream,'bs', 'HandleVisibility','off','LineWidth',2);


xlabel('\lambda (events/second)')
ylabel('Thoughput (events/second)')
legend('Location','northwest')
legend show

% title('Effect of arrival rate on average CEP throughput')

% set(gcf, 'LineLineWidth', 2);

set(gcf, 'PaperUnits', 'normalized');
set(gcf, 'PaperPosition', [0 0 1 1]);
set(gcf,'PaperOrientation','l');

print -dpdf  graphs/comparing_thoughput ;

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

Create your figure first, then set the properties in it:

figure;
set(gca, 'FontSize',30, 'FontName','Times')
set(gca, 'LineWidth',2)

Note that, where there exists no figure, gcf and gca create one, so they can return a valid handle. So in your code, your first set(gca,...) created a figure with an axes in it, and then you called figure, which creates another figure.