13

I'm hoping to use ggplot2 to generate a set of stacked bars in pairs, much like this:

stacked bar chars example

With the following example data:

df <- expand.grid(name = c("oak","birch","cedar"),
        sample = c("one","two"),
        type = c("sapling","adult","dead"))
df$count <- sample(5:200, size = nrow(df), replace = T)

I would want the x-axis to represent the name of the tree, with two bars per tree species: one bar for sample one and one bar for sample two. Then the colors of each bar should be determined by type.

The following code generates the stacked bar with colors by type:

ggplot(df, aes(x = name, y = count, fill = type)) + geom_bar(stat = "identity")

enter image description here

And the following code generates the dodged bars by sample:

ggplot(df, aes(x = name, y = count, group = sample)) + geom_bar(stat = "identity", position = "dodge")

enter image description here

But I can't get it to dodge one of the groupings (sample) and stack the other grouping (type):

ggplot(df, aes(x = name, y = count, fill = type, group = sample)) + geom_bar(stat = "identity", position = "dodge")

enter image description here

canary_in_the_data_mine
  • 2,193
  • 2
  • 24
  • 28

1 Answers1

21

One workaround would be to put interaction of sample and name on x axis and then adjust the labels for the x axis. Problem is that bars are not put close to each other.

ggplot(df, aes(x = as.numeric(interaction(sample,name)), y = count, fill = type)) + 
  geom_bar(stat = "identity",color="white") +
  scale_x_continuous(breaks=c(1.5,3.5,5.5),labels=c("oak","birch","cedar"))

enter image description here

Another solution is to use facets for name and sample as x values.

ggplot(df,aes(x=sample,y=count,fill=type))+
  geom_bar(stat = "identity",color="white")+
  facet_wrap(~name,nrow=1)

enter image description here

Didzis Elferts
  • 95,661
  • 14
  • 264
  • 201
  • 1
    Brilliant. This is very very close. I think, however, the front type ("dead") is hiding the stacked bars ("sapling", "adult") behind it if those values are smaller. Look at "cedar" in the far right column. – canary_in_the_data_mine Jan 28 '14 at 15:47