axis.POSIXct {graphics}R Documentation

Date and Date-time Plotting Functions

Description

Add a date/time axis to the current plot of an object of class "POSIXt" or "Date", respectively.

Usage

axis.POSIXct(side, x, at, format, labels = TRUE, ...)
axis.Date(side, x, at, format, labels = TRUE, ...)

Arguments

side

see axis.

x, at

optional date-time or Date objects, or other types of objects that can be converted appropriately.

format

an optional character string specifying the label format, see strftime.

labels

either a logical value specifying whether annotations are to be made at the tickmarks, or a character vector of labels to be placed at the tick points specified by at.

...

further arguments to be passed from or to other methods, typically graphical parameters.

Details

If at is unspecified, axis.POSIXct and axis.Date work quite hard (from R 4.3.0 via pretty for date-time classes) to choose suitable time units (years, months, days, hours, minutes, or seconds) and a sensible label format based on the axis range. par("lab") controls the approximate number of intervals.

If at is supplied it specifies the locations of the ticks and labels. If the label format is unspecified, a good guess is made by looking at the granularity of at. Printing of tick labels can be suppressed with labels = FALSE.

The date-times for a "POSIXct" input are interpreted in the time zone give by the "tzone" attribute if there is one, otherwise the current time zone.

The way the date-times are rendered (especially month names) is controlled by the locale setting of category "LC_TIME" (see Sys.setlocale).

Value

The locations on the axis scale at which tick marks were drawn.

See Also

DateTimeClasses, Dates for details of the classes.

Axis.

Examples

with(beaver1, {
    opar <- par(mfrow = c(3,1))
    time <- strptime(paste(1990, day, time %/% 100, time %% 100),
                     "%Y %j %H %M")
    plot(time, temp, type = "l") # axis at 6-hour intervals
    # request more ticks
    olab <- par(lab = c(10, 10, 7))
    plot(time, temp, type = "l")
    par(olab)
    # now label every hour on the time axis
    plot(time, temp, type = "l", xaxt = "n")
    r <- as.POSIXct(round(range(time), "hours"))
    axis.POSIXct(1, at = seq(r[1], r[2], by = "hour"), format = "%H")
    par(opar) # reset changed par settings
})

plot(.leap.seconds, seq_along(.leap.seconds), type = "n", yaxt = "n",
     xlab = "leap seconds", ylab = "", bty = "n")
rug(.leap.seconds)
## or as dates
lps <- as.Date(.leap.seconds)
plot(lps, seq_along(.leap.seconds),
     type = "n", yaxt = "n", xlab = "leap seconds",
     ylab = "", bty = "n")
rug(lps)

## 100 random dates in a 10-week period
random.dates <- as.Date("2001/1/1") + 70*sort(stats::runif(100))
plot(random.dates, 1:100)
# or for a better axis labelling
plot(random.dates, 1:100, xaxt = "n")
axis.Date(1, at = seq(as.Date("2001/1/1"), max(random.dates)+6, "weeks"))
axis.Date(1, at = seq(as.Date("2001/1/1"), max(random.dates)+6, "days"),
     labels = FALSE, tcl = -0.2)

## axis.Date() with various data types:
x <- seq(as.Date("2022-01-20"), as.Date("2023-03-21"), by = "days")
plot(data.frame(x, y = 1), xaxt = "n")
legend("topleft", title = "input",
       legend = c("character", "Date", "POSIXct", "POSIXlt", "numeric"),
       fill = c("violet", "red", "orange", "coral1", "darkgreen"))
axis.Date(1)
axis.Date(3, at = "2022-04-01", col.axis = "violet")
axis.Date(3, at = as.Date("2022-07-01"), col.axis = "red")
axis.Date(3, at = as.POSIXct(as.Date("2022-10-01")), col.axis = "orange")
axis.Date(3, at = as.POSIXlt(as.Date("2023-01-01")), col.axis = "coral1")
axis.Date(3, at = as.integer(as.Date("2023-04-01")), col.axis = "darkgreen")
## automatically extends the format:
axis.Date(1, at = "2022-02-15", col.axis = "violet",
         col = "violet", tck = -0.05, mgp = c(3,2,0))

## axis.POSIXct() with various data types (2 minutes):
x <- as.POSIXct("2022-10-01") + c(0, 60, 120)
attributes(x)   # no timezone
plot(data.frame(x, y = 1), xaxt = "n")
legend("topleft", title = "input",
       legend = c("character", "Date", "POSIXct", "POSIXlt", "numeric"),
       fill = c("violet", "red", "orange", "coral1", "darkgreen"))
axis.POSIXct(1)
axis.POSIXct(3, at = "2022-10-01 00:01", col.axis = "violet")
axis.POSIXct(3, at = as.Date("2022-10-01"), col.axis = "red")
axis.POSIXct(3, at = as.POSIXct("2022-10-01 00:01:30"), col.axis = "orange")
axis.POSIXct(3, at = as.POSIXlt("2022-10-01 00:02"), col.axis = "coral1")
axis.POSIXct(3, at = as.numeric(as.POSIXct("2022-10-01 00:00:30")),
                col.axis = "darkgreen")
## automatically extends format (here: subseconds):
axis.POSIXct(3, at = as.numeric(as.POSIXct("2022-10-01 00:00:30")) + 0.25,
                col.axis = "forestgreen", col = "darkgreen", mgp = c(3,2,0))

## axis.POSIXct: 2 time zones
HST <- as.POSIXct("2022-10-01", tz = "HST") + c(0, 60, 60*60)
CET <- HST
attr(CET, "tzone") <- "CET"
plot(data.frame(HST, y = 1), xaxt = "n", xlab = "Hawaii Standard Time (HST)")
axis.POSIXct(1, HST)
axis.POSIXct(1, HST, at = "2022-10-01 00:10", col.axis = "violet")
axis.POSIXct(3, CET)
mtext(3, text = "Central European Time (CET)", line = 3)
axis.POSIXct(3, CET, at="2022-10-01 12:10", col.axis = "violet")

[Package graphics version 4.4.0 Index]