Replace X-axis with own values

109
votes

I have a question regarding the command plot().

Is there a way to fully eliminate the x-axis and replace it with own values? I know that I can get rid of the axis by doing

plot(x,y, xaxt = 'n')

and then add an axis with

axis(side = 1 etc.)

However, when I add the axis, obviously it still refers to the data plotted as 'x'. I would only like to plot the 'y'-values and add the x-axis my own in the sense of just "drawing" the x-axis with own values specified. Is there any way to do that?

The background of this question is that my two data frames differ in their length and therefore I cannot plot them.

2
rplotaxis-labels
Do you want to plot vectors with different lengths or just want to set the x label by yourself? Could you provide an example or give more information about the datset? - Manoel Galdino
You might also want to see how to combine two data frames together. You might be able to make more plots from your data and probably probably make the data more informative. - Sam
possible duplicate of R: How do I set what plot() labels the x-axis with? - Blue Magister
possible duplicate of R, change the spacing of tick marks on the axis of a plot? - Waldir Leoncio
possible duplicate of How to specify the actual x axis values to plot as x axis ticks in R - n0p

2 Answers

192
votes

Not sure if it's what you mean, but you can do this:

plot(1:10, xaxt = "n", xlab='Some Letters')
axis(1, at=1:10, labels=letters[1:10])

which then gives you the graph:

enter image description here

16
votes

Yo could also set labels = FALSE inside axis(...) and print the labels in a separate command with Text. With this option you can rotate the text in case you need it

lablist<-as.vector(c(1:10))
axis(1, at=seq(1, 10, by=1), labels = FALSE)
text(seq(1, 10, by=1), par("usr")[3] - 0.2, labels = lablist, srt = 45, pos = 1, xpd = TRUE)

Detailed explanation here

Image with rotated labels