R: Generic X-Y Plotting

plot {graphics}

R Documentation

Generic X-Y Plotting

Description

Generic function for plotting of R objects. For more details about the graphical parameter arguments, see par.

Usage

plot(x, y, ...)

Arguments

`x`	the coordinates of points in the plot. Alternatively, a single plotting structure, function or any R object with a `plot` method can be provided.
`y`	the y coordinates of points in the plot, optional if `x` is an appropriate structure.
`...`	Arguments to be passed to methods, such as graphical parameters (see `par`). Many methods will accept the following arguments: `type` what type of plot should be drawn. Possible types are `"p"` for points, `"l"` for lines, `"b"` for both, `"c"` for the lines part alone of `"b"`, `"o"` for both “overplotted”, `"h"` for “histogram” like (or “high-density”) vertical lines, `"s"` for stair steps, `"S"` for other steps, see Details below, `"n"` for no plotting. All other `type`s give a warning or an error; using, e.g., `type = "punkte"` being equivalent to `type = "p"` for S compatibility. `main` an overall title for the plot: see `title`. `sub` a sub title for the plot: see `title`. `xlab` a title for the x axis: see `title`. `ylab` a title for the y axis: see `title`. `asp` the y/x aspect ratio, see `plot.window`.

Details

For simple scatter plots, plot.default will be used. However, there are plot methods for many R objects, including functions, data.frames, density objects, etc. Use methods(plot) and the documentation for these.

The two step types differ in their x-y preference: Going from (x1,y1) to (x2,y2) with x1 < x2, type = "s" moves first horizontal, then vertical, whereas type = "S" moves the other way around.

Examples

plot(cars)
lines(lowess(cars))

plot(sin, -pi, 2*pi)

## Discrete Distribution Plot:
plot(table(rpois(100,5)), type = "h", col = "red", lwd=10,
     main="rpois(100,lambda=5)")

## Simple quantiles/ECDF, see ecdf() {library(stats)} for a better one:
plot(x <- sort(rnorm(47)), type = "s", main = "plot(x, type = \"s\")")
points(x, cex = .5, col = "dark red")