Color Names

Description

Returns the built-in color names which R knows about.

Usage

colors()
colours()

Details

These color names can be used with a col= specification in graphics functions.

An even wider variety of colors can be created with primitives rgb and hsv or the derived rainbow, heat.colors, etc.

Value

A character vector containing all the built-in color names.

See Also

palette for setting the ‘palette’ of colors for par(col=<num>); rgb, hsv, hcl, gray; rainbow for a nice example; and heat.colors, topo.colors for images.

col2rgb for translating to RGB numbers and extended examples.

Examples

cl <- colors()
length(cl); cl[1:20]

### ----------- Show (almost) all named colors ---------------------

## 1) with traditional 'graphics' package:
showCols1 <- function(bg = "gray", cex = 0.75, srt = 30) {
    m <- ceiling(sqrt(n <- length(cl <- colors())))
    length(cl) <- m*m; cm <- matrix(cl, m)
    ##
    require("graphics")
    op <- par(mar=rep(0,4), ann=FALSE, bg = bg); on.exit(par(op))
    plot(1:m,1:m, type="n", axes=FALSE)
    text(col(cm), rev(row(cm)), cm,  col = cl, cex=cex, srt=srt)
}
showCols1()

## 2) with 'grid' package:
showCols2 <- function(bg = "grey", cex = 0.75, rot = 30) {
    m <- ceiling(sqrt(n <- length(cl <- colors())))
    length(cl) <- m*m; cm <- matrix(cl, m)
    ##
    require("grid")
    grid.newpage(); vp <- viewport(w = .92, h = .92)
    grid.rect(gp=gpar(fill=bg))
    grid.text(cm, x = col(cm)/m, y = rev(row(cm))/m, rot = rot,
              vp=vp, gp=gpar(cex = cex, col = cm))
}
showCols2()
showCols2(bg = "gray33")