[R] Problems plotting a sparse time series in R

[David Winsemius]

On Oct 29, 2012, at 8:14 AM, Alexander Engelhardt wrote:

> Hi guys,
>
> I am logging data about my body (weight, body fat, blood  
> pressure, ..) in a .csv file and would like to plot this as a time  
> series. I uploaded the (noisified) .csv, you can see the link in the  
> code I have so far (you can run the code directly as-is):
>
>    df.raw <- read.csv("http://www.chaotic-neutral.de/temp/stats-noised.csv 
> ", sep=";", dec=".")
>    date <- as.Date(df.raw[,1])
>    comments <- df.raw[,2]
>    stats <- df.raw[,-c(1,2)]
>
>    ################################################################
>    #### timeSeries
>    library(timeSeries)
>    ts <- timeSeries(charvec=date, data=stats)
>    plot(ts)
>
>    ################################################################
>    #### zoo
>    library(zoo)
>    ts <- zoo(stats, date)
>    plot(ts)

If you instead use this:

ts <- zoo(stats, date)
plot(ts, type="p")

You may get a better idea why your other panels in plot.zoo are emply.  
Y\In them you have no adjacent points that are not missing. R plotting  
routines generally break aa line plot at a missing value rather than  
drawing a line through missing data.

-- 

David.
>
> I tried plotting the stuff with two packages, timeSeries and zoo.  
> Both have the same problem: The column "Bauchfalte" which has a lot  
> of entries (I measure this constantly), gets plotted, but the other  
> ones don't. Most of them have only two entries and a lot of NAs, so  
> I would at least expect a straight line between the two dates in  
> those plots.
>
> Maybe there is a problem with determining the ylim of the plots of  
> the sparse columns, this is what an error message said. But I have  
> no idea how to fix this.
>
> Does anyone have an idea what's wrong here?
>
> Also, if you have suggestions if there is a better format or way to  
> log my data, I would appreciate that as well. I just figured the  
> current way of one central date column and a lot of NAs for stuff I  
> don't measure that day is the best way, because I'd like to add  
> vertical lines at the dates with an entry in the "comment" column in  
> every plot.
>
> Thanks a lot!
> - Alex
>
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David Winsemius, MD
Alameda, CA, USA