[R] Boxplot of multiple vectors with different lengths

[Bert Gunter]

Sorry -- previous versiuon prematurely sent. Full version is:

 Yikes!  You should never have to do this sort of thing (writing stuff
 out to files, etc.)

 What is wanted, I believe, is ?do.call as in

 do.call(boxplot, z)

 where z is list(a,b,c)   as Sarah described.

 However, I think you might do even better in terms of controlling
 options, labels, etc. if you would get the data into standard flat
 file format (data frame) as

Result     Source
 1            a
  3           b
2             b
  5         c
... etc.

(This is easy to do in R and via many packages.)
and then use he formula interface in the lattice ?bwplot  function for th eplot.

Cheers,
Bert

>
> result
>
> On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 1:43 PM, Thomas Adams <thomas.adams at noaa.gov> wrote:
>> Ryan,
>>
>> I think you could do what you want by having the vector data written to
>> separate files; then create a file containing the individual file names. In
>> R, read the file containing the list of file names and loop through this
>> reading in the individual vector files. Maybe this is an inelegant, brute
>> force approach, but it has worked for me with essentially the same problem.
>>
>> Tom
>>
>> On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 4:24 PM, Ryan Utz <utz.ryan at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I'm attempting to write a code that automatically imports data from
>>> different files (with different lengths-just one variable) and makes tidy
>>> box plots for comparison. I can successfully import the data and create a
>>> list of the vectors I want to compare. But I cannot, for the life of me,
>>> figure out how to generate box plots using the "list" option. Suppose these
>>> are my data:
>>>
>>> a<-c(1,1,1,1,2,3,2,1,2,3)
>>> b<-c(2,2,2,3,4,4,4,3,3)
>>> c<-c(4,3,3,2,3,4,5,3,3,3,4,4,5,6,3,2)
>>>
>>> And this is my list of the vectors I'm interested in:
>>>
>>>  z<-list(c("a","b","c"))
>>>
>>> Well, this successfully generates the kind of boxplot I want:
>>>
>>> boxplot(a,b,c)
>>>
>>> But this does not:
>>>
>>> boxplot(z)
>>>
>>> Because I'm trying to write an automatic plot-generator as the amount of
>>> data I'm working with will typically vary, I need to write this to handle
>>> any number of data vectors.
>>>
>>> I've tried every imaginable means of tweaking the name of "z", with zero
>>> success. And I've scoured the help pages for about 45 minutes (just to
>>> preempt any "read the help" responses). Please help!
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Ryan
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> Ryan Utz, Ph.D.
>>> Aquatic Ecologist/STREON Scientist
>>> National Ecological Observatory Network
>>>
>>> Home/Cell: (724) 272-7769
>>> Work: (720) 836-2488
>>>
>>>        [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>>
>>> ______________________________________________
>>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>>> PLEASE do read the posting guide
>>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Thomas E Adams
>> National Weather Service
>> Ohio River Forecast Center
>> 1901 South State Route 134
>> Wilmington, OH 45177
>> EMAIL:  thomas.adams at noaa.gov
>> VOICE:  937-383-0528
>> FAX:    937-383-0033
>>
>>        [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>
>
>
> --
>
> Bert Gunter
> Genentech Nonclinical Biostatistics
>
> Internal Contact Info:
> Phone: 467-7374
> Website:
> http://pharmadevelopment.roche.com/index/pdb/pdb-functional-groups/pdb-biostatistics/pdb-ncb-home.htm



-- 

Bert Gunter
Genentech Nonclinical Biostatistics

Internal Contact Info:
Phone: 467-7374
Website:
http://pharmadevelopment.roche.com/index/pdb/pdb-functional-groups/pdb-biostatistics/pdb-ncb-home.htm