[R] Degree symbol as axis label superscript

Bert Gunter bgunter@4567 @end|ng |rom gm@||@com
Wed Dec 1 05:58:45 CET 2021


Yes, but I should acknowledge my ignorance in not realizing that "\u00b0"
(hex 176) is a simpler way to get the character in R without the OS tool
than intToUtf8() .  If you need math notation beyond simple symbol
characters, plotmath is certainly indispensable.

Bert

On Tue, Nov 30, 2021 at 7:51 PM Andrew Simmons <akwsimmo using gmail.com> wrote:

> Using the degree character seems perfectly legit to me. The reason I
> suggest looking at plotmath is that I think plotmath is easier to read
> (that is, if you're escaping your characters with \u), and because for
> anything more complicated like set notation, big sums, integrals, you'll
> need to get used to plotmath to make your labels. Either way, nice
> suggestion, both work perfectly well for this situation
>
> On Tue, Nov 30, 2021, 16:24 Bert Gunter <bgunter.4567 using gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> True, but unnecessary with UTF-8 encodings of unicode (subject to some
>> caveats, though):
>>
>> plot(1:5, runif(5),xlab = "Temp (°F)", ylab = "result")
>>
>> should work fine, where the º ("degree") symbol was inserted by the
>> symbol insertion facility on my Mac. Windows has something similar.
>> See the comments in the plotmath documentation just before the
>> examples for more details on this, along with some caveats about the
>> need for a suitable display/plot device.
>>
>> More laboriously, but perhaps more informatively, one can look up
>> "unicode code point for degree symbol" to find that it is decimal 176.
>> Then R's intToUtf8() function converts this to the UTF-8 encoding that
>> **should** display as a "degree" symbol, subject to the above
>> referenced caveats.
>> Hence:
>> > intToUtf8(176)
>> [1] "°"  ##degree character
>>
>> ## So, for example, you can do:
>> > degrF <-paste0(intToUtf8(176),"F")
>> > degrF
>> [1] "°F" ("degrees F")
>>
>> > plot(1:5, runif(5),xlab = paste0("Temp (", degrF,")"), ylab = "result")
>>
>> As Andrew said, you can use plotmath to do this, too; it just isn't
>> needed for simple insertion of "standard" symbols.
>>
>> NOTE: As I am far from an expert on all of this, I would appreciate
>> clarification or correction of any errors or misstatements in the
>> above.
>>
>> Bert Gunter
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Nov 30, 2021 at 11:34 AM Andrew Simmons <akwsimmo using gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > Excuse my brevity, but take a look at ?plotmath
>> >
>> > It has tons of tips for making pretty labels
>> >
>> > On Tue, Nov 30, 2021, 14:05 Rich Shepard <rshepard using appl-ecosys.com>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > > I want to present the temperature on the Y-axis label as 'Water
>> Temperature
>> > > (oC)' with the degree symbol as a superscript.
>> > >
>> > > My web search found a couple of methods; one put the entire example
>> string
>> > > in the axis label, the other is close, but still incorrect.
>> > >
>> > > Source example:
>> > > #define expression with superscript
>> > > x_expression <- expression(x^3 ~ variable ~ label)
>> > > # The example axis label is:
>> > > 'X3 variable label' (with the 3 as a superscript)
>> > >
>> > > My use:
>> > > # Set degree symbol as superscript in plot's y axis:
>> > > y_expression <- expression(^o ~ C)
>> > >
>> > > R's error message:
>> > > Error in source("../scripts/all_temp_plots.r") :
>> > >    ../scripts/all_temp_plots.r:10:28: unexpected '^'
>> > > 9: # Set degree symbol as superscript in plot's y axis:
>> > > 10: y_expression <- expression(^
>> > >                                 ^
>> > >
>> > > What is the proper way to display a degree symbol in a plot's axis
>> label?
>> > >
>> > > Rich
>> > >
>> > > ______________________________________________
>> > > R-help using r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
>> > > 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.
>> > >
>> >
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>> >
>> > ______________________________________________
>> > R-help using r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
>> > 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.
>>
>

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