Why does "patch(X,Y,Z, FaceColor=C)" result in thin lines rather than full patches?

When calling "patch" with the following syntax:

>> patch(X, Y, Z, 'FaceColor', C) 

MATLAB interprets "Z" as the color, and displays straight lines rather than the full patches. 

Why does this happen?

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

This behavior is expected. MATLAB expects all positional arguments to come before Name-Value arguments. You can either call "patch" and specific a color by using: 

>> patch(X,Y,Z,C)

or 

 >> patch('XData', X, 'YData', Y, 'ZData', Z, 'FaceColor', C)

The problem with the following code

>> patch(input1, input2, input3, 'FaceColor', input4) % (the incorrect syntax resulting in thin lines) 

is that the arguments are interpreted by MATLAB as

>> patch(X, Y, C, 'FaceColor', C)

"input3" being interpreted as "C" since MATLAB expects either the positional arguments (X,Y,Z,C) or (X,Y,C) before Name-Value arguments when using the syntax "patch(___, Name, Value)". There is no (X,Y,Z) syntax that can precede the Name-Value arguments.

Please refer to the documentation on "patch" for more details.