Bar and line graphs (ggplot2)

Table of contents

Problem

You want to do make basic bar or line graphs.

Solution

To make graphs with ggplot2, the data must be in a data frame, and in "long" (as opposed to wide) format. If your data needs to be restructured, see this page for more information.

Basic graphs with discrete x-axis

This data will be used for the examples below:

df <- data.frame(time = factor(c("Lunch","Dinner"), levels=c("Lunch","Dinner")),
                 total_bill = c(14.89, 17.23))
#   time total_bill
#  Lunch      14.89
# Dinner      17.23

# Load the ggplot2 library
library(ggplot2)

This is derived from the tips dataset in the reshape2 package.

Bar graphs

These are the variable mappings used here:

# Very basic bar graph
ggplot(data=df, aes(x=time, y=total_bill)) + geom_bar()

# Map the time of day to different fill colors. These both have the same result.
ggplot(data=df, aes(x=time, y=total_bill, fill=time)) + geom_bar()
ggplot(data=df, aes(x=time, y=total_bill)) + geom_bar(aes(fill=time))

# Add a black outline
ggplot(data=df, aes(x=time, y=total_bill, fill=time)) + geom_bar(colour="black")

# No legend, since the information is redundant
ggplot(data=df, aes(x=time, y=total_bill, fill=time)) + geom_bar(colour="black") +
    opts(legend.position="none")

The desired bar graph might look something like this:

# Add title, narrower bars, gray fill, and change axis labels
ggplot(data=df, aes(x=time, y=total_bill, fill=time)) + 
    geom_bar(colour="black", fill="#DD8888", width=.7) + 
    opts(legend.position="none") + 
    xlab("Time of day") + ylab("Total bill") +
    opts(title="Average bill for 2 people")

See ../Colors (ggplot2) for more information on colors.

Line graphs

For line graphs, the data points must be grouped so that it knows which points to connect. In this case, it is simple -- all points should be connected, so group=1. When more variables are used and multiple lines are drawn, the grouping for lines is usually done by variable (this is seen in later examples).

These are the variable mappings used here:

# Basic line graph. These both have the same result.
ggplot(data=df, aes(x=time, y=total_bill, group=1)) + geom_line()
ggplot(data=df, aes(x=time, y=total_bill)) + geom_line(aes(group=1))

# Add points
ggplot(data=df, aes(x=time, y=total_bill, group=1)) + geom_line() + geom_point()

# Change color of both line and points
# Change line type and point type, and use thicker line and larger points
# Change points to circles with white fill
ggplot(data=df, aes(x=time, y=total_bill, group=1)) + 
    geom_line(colour="red", linetype="dotted", size=1.5) + 
    geom_point(colour="red", size=4, shape=21, fill="white")

The desired line graph might look something like this:

# Change the y-range to go from 0 to the maximum value in the total_bill column,
# and change axis labels
ggplot(data=df, aes(x=time, y=total_bill, group=1)) + geom_line() + geom_point() +
    ylim(0, max(df$total_bill)) +
    xlab("Time of day") + ylab("Total bill") +
    opts(title="Average bill for 2 people")

See ../Colors (ggplot2) for more information on colors, and ../Shapes and line types for information on shapes and line types.

Graphs with more variables

This data will be used for the examples below:

df1 <- data.frame(sex       = factor(c("Female","Female","Male","Male")),
                 time       = factor(c("Lunch","Dinner","Lunch","Dinner"), levels=c("Lunch","Dinner")),
                 total_bill = c(13.53, 16.81, 16.24, 17.42))
#    sex   time total_bill
# Female  Lunch      13.53
# Female Dinner      16.81
#   Male  Lunch      16.24
#   Male Dinner      17.42

This is derived from the tips dataset in the reshape2 package.

Bar graphs

These are the variable mappings used here:

# Stacked bar graph -- this is probably not what you want
ggplot(data=df1, aes(x=time, y=total_bill, fill=sex)) + geom_bar()

# Bar graph, time on x-axis, color fill grouped by sex -- use position_dodge()
ggplot(data=df1, aes(x=time, y=total_bill, fill=sex)) + geom_bar(position=position_dodge())
ggplot(data=df1, aes(x=time, y=total_bill, fill=sex)) + geom_bar(position=position_dodge(), colour="black")

# Change colors
ggplot(data=df1, aes(x=time, y=total_bill, fill=sex)) + geom_bar(position=position_dodge(), colour="black") +
    scale_fill_manual(values=c("#999999", "#E69F00"))

It is easy to change which variable is mapped the x-axis and which is mapped to the fill. 

# Bar graph, time on x-axis, color fill grouped by sex -- use position_dodge()
ggplot(data=df1, aes(x=sex, y=total_bill, fill=time)) + geom_bar(position=position_dodge(), colour="black")

See ../Colors (ggplot2) for more information on colors.

Line graphs

These are the variable mappings used here:

To draw multiple lines, the points must be grouped by a variable; otherwise all points will be connected by a single line. In this case, we want them to be grouped by sex.

# Basic line graph with points
ggplot(data=df1, aes(x=time, y=total_bill, group=sex)) + geom_line() + geom_point()

# Map sex to color
ggplot(data=df1, aes(x=time, y=total_bill, group=sex, colour=sex)) + geom_line() + geom_point()

# Map sex to different point shape, and use larger points
ggplot(data=df1, aes(x=time, y=total_bill, group=sex, shape=sex)) + geom_line() + geom_point()

# Use thicker lines and larger points, and hollow white-filled points
ggplot(data=df1, aes(x=time, y=total_bill, group=sex, shape=sex)) + 
    geom_line(size=1.5) + 
    geom_point(size=3, fill="white") +
    scale_shape_manual(values=c(22,21))

It is easy to change which variable is mapped the x-axis and which is mapped to the color or shape. 

ggplot(data=df1, aes(x=sex, y=total_bill, group=time, shape=time, color=time)) + geom_line() + geom_point()

See ../Colors (ggplot2) for more information on colors, and ../Shapes and line types for information on shapes and line types.

Finished examples

The finished graphs might look like these:

# A bar graph
ggplot(data=df1, aes(x=time, y=total_bill, fill=sex)) + 
    geom_bar(colour="black",
             position=position_dodge(),
             size=.3) +                        # Thinner lines
    scale_fill_hue(name="Sex of payer") +      # Set legend title
    xlab("Time of day") + ylab("Total bill") + # Set axis labels
    opts(title="Average bill for 2 people") +  # Set title
    theme_bw()

# A line graph
ggplot(data=df1, aes(x=time, y=total_bill, group=sex, shape=sex, colour=sex)) + 
    geom_line(aes(linetype=sex), size=1) +     # Set linetype by sex
    geom_point(size=3, fill="white") +         # Use larger points, fill with white
    ylim(0, max(df1$total_bill)) +             # Set y range
    scale_colour_hue(name="Sex of payer",      # Set legend title
                     l=30)  +                  # Use darker colors (lightness=30)
    scale_shape_manual(name="Sex of payer",
                       values=c(22,21)) +      # Use points with a fill color
    scale_linetype_discrete(name="Sex of payer") +
    xlab("Time of day") + ylab("Total bill") + # Set axis labels
    opts(title="Average bill for 2 people") +  # Set title
    theme_bw() +
    opts(legend.position=c(.7, .4)) # Position legend inside
                                    # This must go after theme_bw

In the line graph, the reason that the legend title, "Sex of payer", must be specified three times is so that there is only one legend. The issue is explained here.

With a numeric x-axis

When the variable on the x-axis is numeric, it is sometimes useful to treat it as continuous, and sometimes useful to treat it as categorical. In this data set, the dose is a numeric variable with values 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0. It might be useful to treat these values as equal categories when making a graph.

dfn <- read.table(header=T, con <- textConnection('
supp dose length
  OJ  0.5  13.23
  OJ  1.0  22.70
  OJ  2.0  26.06
  VC  0.5   7.98
  VC  1.0  16.77
  VC  2.0  26.14
'))
close(con)

This is derived from the ToothGrowth dataset included with R.

With x-axis treated as continuous

A simple graph might put dose on the x-axis as a numeric value. It is possible to make a line graph this way, but not a bar graph.

ggplot(data=dfn, aes(x=dose, y=length, group=supp, colour=supp)) + geom_line() + geom_point()

With x-axis treated as categorical

If you wish to treat it as a categorical variable instead of a numeric one, it must be converted to a factor. This can be done by modifying the data frame, or by changing the specification of the graph.

# Copy the data frame and convert dose to a factor
dfn2 <- dfn
dfn2$dose <- factor(dfn2$dose)
ggplot(data=dfn2, aes(x=dose, y=length, group=supp, colour=supp)) + geom_line() + geom_point()

# Use the original data frame, but put factor() directly in the plot specification
ggplot(data=dfn, aes(x=factor(dose), y=length, group=supp, colour=supp)) + geom_line() + geom_point()

It is also possible to make a bar graph when the variable is treated as categorical rather than numeric.

# Use dfn2 from above
ggplot(data=dfn2, aes(x=dose, y=length, fill=supp)) + geom_bar(position=position_dodge())

# Use the original data frame, but put factor() directly in the plot specification
ggplot(data=dfn, aes(x=factor(dose), y=length, fill=supp)) + geom_bar(position=position_dodge())