[R] Question about datatypes/plotting issue

Oscar Bonilla obonilla at galileo.edu
Wed Mar 11 02:15:14 CET 2009


Hi,

I am trying to plot the Case-Shiller index found at: http://www2.standardandpoors.com/spf/pdf/index/CSHomePrice_History_022445.xls

The way I'm importing it into R is as follows:

	library(gdata)
	W <- read.xls("http://www2.standardandpoors.com/spf/pdf/index/CSHomePrice_History_022445.xls 
", header=TRUE)
	attach(W)

To give you and idea of what the data looks like:

 > head(W)
            Date AZ.Phoenix CA.Los.Angeles CA.San.Diego CA.San.Francisco
1                     PHXR           LXXR         SDXR             SFXR
2  January 1987                     59.33        54.67            46.61
3 February 1987                     59.65        54.89            46.87
4    March 1987                     59.99        55.16            47.32
5    April 1987                     60.81        55.85            47.69
6      May 1987                     61.67        56.35            48.31
   CO.Denver DC.Washington FL.Miami FL.Tampa GA.Atlanta IL.Chicago  
MA.Boston
1      DNXR          WDXR     MIXR     TPXR       ATXR       CHXR       
BOXR
2     50.20         64.11    68.50    77.33                 53.55      
70.04
3     49.96         64.77    68.76    77.93                 54.64      
70.08
4     50.15         65.71    69.23    77.76                 54.80      
70.00
5     50.55         66.40    69.20    77.56                 54.88      
70.70
6     50.63         67.27    69.46    77.85                 55.43      
71.51
   MI.Detroit MN.Minneapolis NC.Charlotte NV.Las.Vegas NY.New.York  
OH.Cleveland
1       DEXR           MNXR         CRXR         LVXR         
NYXR         CEXR
2                                  63.39        66.36        
74.42        53.53
3                                  63.94        67.03        
75.43        53.50
4                                  64.17        67.34        
76.25        53.68
5                                  64.81        67.88        
77.34        53.75
6                                  65.18        67.90        
79.16        54.71
   OR.Portland TX.Dallas WA.Seattle Composite.10 Composite.20
1        POXR      DAXR       SEXR         CSXR     SPCS20R
2       41.05                             62.82
3       41.28                             63.39
4       41.06                             63.87
5       40.96                             64.57
6       41.24                             65.56


Now on to the problem... if I just run

	plot(CA.San.Francisco ~ Date)

I get:
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: pastedGraphic.png
Type: image/png
Size: 14890 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/attachments/20090310/b2d0d034/attachment-0009.png>
-------------- next part --------------


Which I suspect is a problem because the Date column is not really a  
Date, it is a "factor"

	> class(Date)
	[1] "factor"

If I run:
	plot(as.numeric(CA.San.Francisco), type="l")

I get:

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: pastedGraphic.png
Type: image/png
Size: 9670 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/attachments/20090310/b2d0d034/attachment-0010.png>
-------------- next part --------------



which is wrong, as CA.San.Francisco has no such discontinuity.

 > CA.San.Francisco
   [1] SFXR   46.61  46.87  47.32  47.69  48.31  48.83  49.49  49.94   
50.69
  [11] 51.33  51.80  52.03  52.24  52.64  53.19  54.19  56.09  58.22   
58.70
  [21] 59.00  59.50  60.37  61.31  62.20  62.66  63.32  64.64  66.27   
67.77
  [31] 69.26  70.27  71.36  72.31  72.95  73.25  73.02  72.87  72.95   
73.50
  [41] 74.57  75.12  75.15  74.81  74.45  74.24  73.44  72.58  71.47   
71.17
  [51] 70.27  69.56  69.46  70.13  70.83  71.39  71.52  71.55  71.21   
70.69
  [61] 70.05  69.67  69.48  69.17  69.26  69.86  70.02  70.00  69.64   
69.51
  [71] 69.28  68.85  68.21  67.77  67.44  67.09  67.59  67.90  67.99   
67.65
  [81] 67.63  67.50  67.18  66.77  66.27  65.98  65.79  66.37  67.05   
67.70
  [91] 68.15  68.38  68.40  68.21  68.17  68.04  67.93  67.73  67.40   
66.79
[101] 67.08  67.31  67.50  67.72  67.78  67.76  67.30  66.80  66.43   
66.15
[111] 65.97  65.92  66.44  67.05  67.67  68.02  68.35  68.43  68.53   
68.72
[121] 68.69  68.80  68.81  69.78  71.09  72.19  73.12  73.75  74.43   
74.76
[131] 75.22  75.31  75.81  76.19  76.53  77.48  79.08  80.82  82.41   
83.52
[141] 84.41  85.06  85.05  84.66  84.50  85.03  85.93  87.51  89.21   
90.82
[151] 92.52  94.20  95.14  96.15  96.72  97.87  98.90  100.00 102.70  
106.56
[161] 110.97 115.01 118.45 119.48 119.95 120.94 123.08 125.66 128.58  
131.16
[171] 133.27 134.10 134.38 134.09 132.64 130.95 129.15 128.60 128.01  
126.99
[181] 125.47 125.13 126.06 128.79 132.62 136.07 139.35 141.02 141.93  
142.29
[191] 142.74 143.06 142.40 141.90 142.19 143.00 144.69 145.53 146.53  
147.75
[201] 148.72 150.25 151.75 153.36 154.62 155.93 158.11 160.90 164.65  
167.76
[211] 171.51 173.85 175.89 178.15 180.75 183.15 185.72 189.35 193.50  
198.30
[221] 201.86 205.52 208.92 211.56 212.86 214.73 215.55 215.70 215.11  
214.78
[231] 215.50 216.04 217.52 218.37 218.12 217.63 217.22 216.37 215.42  
213.84
[241] 212.13 211.78 210.78 211.09 211.47 210.89 209.48 208.64 208.15  
206.46
[251] 202.03 195.49 189.23 183.81 174.54 168.38 164.63 162.70 159.83  
156.88
[261] 151.42 145.53 139.44 135.28 130.12
256 Levels: 100.00 102.70 106.56 110.97 115.01 118.45 119.48  
119.95 ... SFXR

However, as.numeric(CA.San.Francisco) does have it!

 > as.numeric(CA.San.Francisco)
   [1] 256 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122  
123 124
  [19] 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 140 164 185 199 205 211  
214 217
  [37] 215 213 214 219 224 227 228 226 223 221 218 212 207 203 199 190  
187 198
  [55] 201 206 208 209 204 200 197 192 188 184 185 194 196 195 191 189  
186 183
  [73] 173 164 154 149 156 166 168 158 157 155 150 144 140 138 135 141  
147 160
  [91] 171 175 176 173 172 170 167 162 153 145 148 152 155 161 165 163  
151 146
[109] 142 139 137 136 143 147 159 169 174 177 178 180 179 181 182 193  
202 210
[127] 216 220 222 225 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 244  
243 241
[145] 240 242 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255   1   2    
3   4   5
[163]   6   7   8   9  10  13  17  23  26  28  29  27  25  22  20  18   
16  15
[181]  12  11  14  19  24  31  32  34  36  38  40  42  39  35  37  41   
43  44
[199]  45  46  47  48  50  51  52  53  55  57  60  61  63  64  66  67   
68  69
[217]  71  73  74  76  77  79  83  89  92  94  99 100  96  95  98 101  
104 107
[235] 106 105 103 102  97  93  91  90  85  87  88  86  84  82  81  80   
78  75
[253]  72  70  65  62  59  58  56  54  49  44  33  30  21

What I'd like to get, is a graph like this (the red line):

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: pastedGraphic.png
Type: image/png
Size: 28618 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/attachments/20090310/b2d0d034/attachment-0011.png>
-------------- next part --------------


I'm really puzzled about what's going on here. Any help would be  
greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

-Oscar



More information about the R-help mailing list