ggplot plot x axis in a specific order

Question

I have a question about plotting x axis in a certain order.

here is the sample data I am plotting:

  year                             names count
1 1998               allmylife - kcijojo    83
2 1997      doowopthatthing - laurynhill   196
3 1998      gettinjiggywitit - willsmith   231
4 2000 idontwanttomissathing - aerosmith    82
5 1998              imyourangel - rkelly   121
6 2013               myall - mariahcarey    70

Here is my code:

library(ggplot2)
setwd("C:/Users/Andrew/Desktop/music lyrics")
data = read.csv("summary.csv", header=FALSE, stringsAsFactors = FALSE)
names(data) = c('year', 'names', 'count')

ggplot(data, aes(names,count,  fill=year))+
geom_bar(stat='identity')+ 
theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 90, hjust = 1))

And here is my current plot: enter image description here

How do I sort the x axis such that it starts from 1998, 1999, 2000....2014? (instead of plotting them in random years)

Put `year` as `x`, so `ggplot(..., aes(x = year, ...))`. – Roman Luštrik Nov 21 '14 at 14:49 — Roman Luštrik, Nov 21 '14 at 14:49

LyzandeR · Answer 1 · 2014-11-20T18:47:28.893

3

Do that in the ggplot function using sort:

library(ggplot2)
a$year <- factor(a$year)
ggplot(a, aes(names, count,  fill=year)) +
  geom_bar(stat='identity') + 
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 90, hjust = 1)) +
  scale_x_discrete(limits=a$names[order(a$year)])

enter image description here

edited Nov 20 '14 at 18:47

answered Nov 20 '14 at 13:36

LyzandeR

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This changes the data, look at your plot and then look at the data. – Matthew Plourde Nov 20 '14 at 15:53
@MatthewPlourde Thanks for noticing. I changed it to reflect the data now. I am using order in the ggplot function on the dataframe this time. Thanks! – LyzandeR Nov 20 '14 at 18:18
But this doesn't do what OP wants. – Matthew Plourde Nov 20 '14 at 18:23
Thanks again. I posted an alternative using scale_x_discrete(limits=a$names[order(a$year)]). Thanks for the help. – LyzandeR Nov 20 '14 at 18:49

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 20 '14 at 16:17

1

This will order the bars first by year, then alphabetically by name.

d <- read.csv(text="year,names,count
1998,               allmylife - kcijojo,    83
1997,      doowopthatthing - laurynhill,   196
1998,      gettinjiggywitit - willsmith,   231
2000, idontwanttomissathing - aerosmith,    82
1998,              imyourangel - rkelly,   121
2013,               myall - mariahcarey,    70")

d <- with(d, d[order(year, names), ])

d <- within(d, {
    names <- reorder(names, seq_along(names), order=TRUE)
    year <- as.factor(year)
})

ggplot(d, aes(names, count,  fill=year))+
  geom_bar(stat='identity')+ 
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 45, hjust = 1)) +labs(fill='year')

enter image description here

answered Nov 20 '14 at 16:17

Matthew Plourde

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I understand the with() function sort the dataframe first by year, then by its names. Would you mind explaining the purpose of the within() function? – user3773503 Nov 20 '14 at 17:10
`within` is like `with`, but instead of returning the value of the final statement, it returns a copy of the `data.frame` with the changes applied. – Matthew Plourde Nov 20 '14 at 17:11
Okay, but for this case both with() and within() return a data.frame, right? Also, does reorder(names, seq_along(names), order=True) fixes the order of the names and forces ggplot to follow this order? – user3773503 Nov 20 '14 at 17:25

ggplot plot x axis in a specific order

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