[R] using "plot" with time series object - "axes = FALSE" option does not appear to work

[Clifford Long]

Dear R-help,

I am told by Professor Ripley that my question (quote) wastes the time
of (and has insulted on-list) the R developers by falsely claiming
there are problems with their code.  I am writing, as he instructed,
to publicly apologize to the R developers for any slight that my
question might have generated.

When posing my question, I genuinely thought that by invoking "plot"
that it was a Base R graphics package that I was using, and not that
offered by Mr. Ryan.

As I am told that I owe an apology, I would like to do as I was
instructed and publicly apologize on the list to the R developers, but
not for any malicious intent, but rather for my lack of expertise and
any unintentional insult that resulted.  (My apologies also to Mr.
Ryan for my ignorance.)

Signed "bruised, but maybe a little less ignorant about R".

Cliff Long
gnolffilc at gmail.com




On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 12:03 AM, Clifford Long <gnolffilc at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear R-help,
>
> I am attempting to plot data using standard R plot utilities.  The
> data was retrieved from FRED (St. Louis Federal Reserve) using the
> package quantmod.  My question is NOT about quantmod.  While I
> retrieve data using quantmod, I am not using its charting utility.  I
> have been having success using the standard R "plot" utilities to this
> point with this type of data.
>
> Eventually I want to put two series on the same plot but with the
> y-axis for one series on the right side, and also inverted (min at the
> top, max at the bottom).  I believe that I see how to do this by using
> par(new = TRUE) with a second plot statement with "axes = FALSE",
> followed by the command "axis(side = 4, ylim = c(max(seriesname),
> min(seriesname))".
>
> Here is what I believe should be a smaller reproducible example of my issue:
>
> #-----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> library(quantmod)
>
> getSymbols('PCECTPI', src='FRED')
> is.xts(PCECTPI)      # check the type of object - response is 'TRUE'
>
> plot(PCECTPI)  # This works fine.
>
> plot(PCECTPI, axes = FALSE)  # This works in that it gives me a plot,
> but I get the axes regardless of the use of "axes = FALSE".
>
> #-----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I did find that using par(yaxt = "n") seems to work to suppress the
> y-axis.  But it seems to me that the "axes = FALSE" command should
> also work, and I believe that it would be easier to use in the larger
> context of my goal.
>
>
> I have spent time with the R help pages and Nabble searches of the R
> help archives but I still seem to be missing something.
>
> Does the "axes = FALSE" option not work when using plot with this type
> of data object?
> Is there some other fundamental thing that I have overlooked?
> Or should this work?
>
> My apologies if the answer is obvious and I've just missed it.  Thank
> you in advance for any help that can be provided.
>
> Cliff Long
> gnolffilc at gmail.com
>
>
> ####################################################################
>
> My system:
> HP Pavilion
> Windows 7
> The computer/OS is 64-bit.  I am running the precompiled 32-bit
> version of R (per sessionInfo).
> Thus far, everything seems to have been working as expected.
>
>
>> sessionInfo()
> R version 2.12.1 (2010-12-16)
> Platform: i386-pc-mingw32/i386 (32-bit)
>
> locale:
> [1] LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252
> [2] LC_CTYPE=English_United States.1252
> [3] LC_MONETARY=English_United States.1252
> [4] LC_NUMERIC=C
> [5] LC_TIME=English_United States.1252
>
> attached base packages:
> [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base
>
> other attached packages:
> [1] quantmod_0.3-15 TTR_0.20-2      xts_0.7-5       zoo_1.6-4
> [5] Defaults_1.1-1
>
> loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
> [1] grid_2.12.1     lattice_0.19-13 tools_2.12.1
>
>
>> Sys.getlocale()
> [1] "LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252;LC_CTYPE=English_United
> States.1252;LC_MONETARY=English_United
> States.1252;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=English_United States.1252"
>