Strange behaviour of GGPLOT when x-axis corresponds Date

Question

I have below GGPLOT :

library(zoo)
library(quantmod)
library(ggplot2)
Data = data.frame('class' = c(rep(c('a', 'b', 'c'), 8), c('a', 'b')), 'Date' = as.yearqtr(rep(c('2021 Q4', '2022 Q1', '2022 Q2', '2022 Q3', '2022 Q4', '2023 Q1', '2023 Q2', '2023 Q3', '2023 Q4' ), each = 3))[-27], 'Value' = 1:26)
ggplot(Data, aes(x = Date, y = Value, fill = class)) +
    geom_bar(stat = 'identity', position = 'dodge', width = 0.1)

With this I am getting below plot :

As you see the first date is flowing out of the plot window.

Any pointer why is it happening and how to correct this will be very helpful.

Also, how can I get x-axis tick for all dates instead of having alternate dates?

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 01 '21 at 09:36

0

If you make Date a factor with factor(Date) you'll solve both of your problems. You'll notice you get really skinny bars. Just change your width argument inside geom_bar() to 0.5.

ggplot(Data, aes(x = factor(Date), y = Value, fill = class)) + geom_bar(stat = 'identity', position = 'dodge', width = 0.5)

Link to output plot

answered Dec 01 '21 at 09:36

Dekel Wainer

1

Thanks. But I would try to avoid changing date to factor because if I have lot many dates then the plot will look messy – Bogaso Dec 01 '21 at 09:58
Good point, thanks for the comment – Dekel Wainer Dec 01 '21 at 10:55

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 01 '21 at 10:14

The issue comes from using as.yearqtr as explained here

ggplot(Data, aes(x = Date, y = Value, fill = class)) +
  geom_bar(stat = 'identity', position = 'dodge', width = 0.1) +
  scale_x_yearqtr(breaks = seq(from = min(Data$Date), to = max(Data$Date), by = 0.25), format = "%YQ%q")

Strange behaviour of GGPLOT when x-axis corresponds Date

2 Answers2