\draw not working inside axis environment

Question

Judging from the pgfplots manual I expected the following code to work:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\begin{document}
\begin{figure}
  \begin{tikzpicture}
    \begin{axis}[
      xmin=0,
      xmax=4,
      ymin=0,
      ymax=4,
      ]
      \draw (1,1) -- (3,2);
    \end{axis}
  \end{tikzpicture}
\end{figure}
\end{document}

However, it doesn't - meaning that it seems the \draw command does nothing at all. I just get an empty axes with no line.

Can anyone shed some light on this? I guess the solution will be really easy...

Answer 1

You need to add the compat option to tell pgfplots which version you want to use. The most recent version is 1.11, or you can use the keyword newest to always use the newest version. Note that the default behavior of assigning points was changed in v1.11, so you need to set the compatibility equal to or newer than that. Note also that the newest syntax is not recommended according to the package author (or at least, you should know you have a reason to use newest instead of an explicit version).

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
%\pgfplotsset{compat=newest} %<------ Here
\pgfplotsset{compat=1.11} %<------ Or use this one
\begin{document}
\begin{figure}
  \begin{tikzpicture}
    \begin{axis}[
      xmin=0,
      xmax=4,
      ymin=0,
      ymax=4,
      ]
      \draw (1,1) -- (3,2);
    \end{axis}
  \end{tikzpicture}
\end{figure}
\end{document}

---

In fact, if you look at the log for the OP MWE (without the compat being set), you find the following message:

Package pgfplots Warning: running in backwards compatibility mode (unsuitable t
ick labels; missing features). Consider writing \pgfplotsset{compat=1.11} into 
your preamble.
 on input line 4.

which tells you most of what you need to know!