R: Cleveland's Dot Plots

dotchart {graphics}

R Documentation

Cleveland's Dot Plots

Description

Draw a Cleveland dot plot.

Usage

dotchart(x, labels = NULL, groups = NULL, gdata = NULL,
         cex = par("cex"), pch = 21, gpch = 21, bg = par("bg"),
         color = par("fg"), gcolor = par("fg"), lcolor = "gray",
         xlim = range(x[is.finite(x)]),
         main = NULL, xlab = NULL, ylab = NULL, ...)

Arguments

`x`	either a vector or matrix of numeric values (`NA`s are allowed). If `x` is a matrix the overall plot consists of juxtaposed dotplots for each row. Inputs which satisfy `is.numeric(x)` but not `is.vector(x) \|\| is.matrix(x)` are coerced by `as.numeric`, with a warning.
`labels`	a vector of labels for each point. For vectors the default is to use `names(x)` and for matrices the row labels `dimnames(x)[[1]]`.
`groups`	an optional factor indicating how the elements of `x` are grouped. If `x` is a matrix, `groups` will default to the columns of `x`.
`gdata`	data values for the groups. This is typically a summary such as the median or mean of each group.
`cex`	the character size to be used. Setting `cex` to a value smaller than one can be a useful way of avoiding label overlap. Unlike many other graphics functions, this sets the actual size, not a multiple of `par("cex")`.
`pch`	the plotting character or symbol to be used.
`gpch`	the plotting character or symbol to be used for group values.
`bg`	the background color of plotting characters or symbols to be used; use `par(bg= *)` to set the background color of the whole plot.
`color`	the color(s) to be used for points and labels.
`gcolor`	the single color to be used for group labels and values.
`lcolor`	the color(s) to be used for the horizontal lines.
`xlim`	horizontal range for the plot, see `plot.window`, e.g.
`main`	overall title for the plot, see `title`.
`xlab, ylab`	axis annotations as in `title`.
`...`	graphical parameters can also be specified as arguments.

Value

This function is invoked for its side effect, which is to produce two variants of dotplots as described in Cleveland (1985).

Dot plots are a reasonable substitute for bar plots.

References

Becker, R. A., Chambers, J. M. and Wilks, A. R. (1988) The New S Language. Wadsworth & Brooks/Cole.

Cleveland, W. S. (1985) The Elements of Graphing Data. Monterey, CA: Wadsworth.

Murrell, P. (2005) R Graphics. Chapman & Hall/CRC Press.

Examples

dotchart(VADeaths, main = "Death Rates in Virginia - 1940")
op <- par(xaxs="i")# 0 -- 100%
dotchart(t(VADeaths), xlim = c(0,100),
         main = "Death Rates in Virginia - 1940")
par(op)

[Package graphics version 2.15.1 Index]