Why does geom_text() throw coercion errors when hjust and vjust are strings?

Question

I've noticed an unexpected behavior in ggplot2's geom_text() geom. If the attributes hjust and vjust are specified as strings, R returns coercion errors, though the plots seem to come out OK. The problem came up in a ggplot2-based package I'm developing. For simplicity, I've created stripped-down examples that still produce the error.

First, I tried it with qplot()

##qplot version
library(ggplot2)
p <- qplot(cty, hwy, 
           label = drv, 
           hjust = "right", 
           geom  = "text", 
           data  = mpg
)

print(p)

And I got this error:

Warning message:
In validDetails.text(x) : NAs introduced by coercion

Then I tried it with ggplot():

##ggplot version
library(ggplot2)
p <- ggplot(
          aes(x   = cty,
              y   = hwy
          ), data = mpg
)

p <- p + geom_text(
           aes(label = drv),
           hjust     = "right"
)

print(p)

and got an identical plot, and an identical error:

Warning message:
In validDetails.text(x) : NAs introduced by coercion

I then tried setting both hjust and vjust:

library(ggplot2)
p <- ggplot(
          aes(x   = cty,
              y   = hwy
          ), data = mpg
)

p <- p + geom_text(
           aes(label = drv),
           hjust     = "right",
           vjust     = "top"
)

print(p)

With both parameters set using strings, R returns two coercion errors:

Warning messages:
1: In validDetails.text(x) : NAs introduced by coercion
2: In validDetails.text(x) : NAs introduced by coercion

But, when the parameters are numbers, R returns no coercion errors:

## Using numbers instead of strings
library(ggplot2)
p <- ggplot(
          aes(x   = cty,
              y   = hwy
          ), data = mpg
)

p <- p + geom_text(
           aes(label = drv),
           hjust     = 0,
           vjust     = 0,
           data      = mpg
)

print(p)

I'm not quite sure why this happens, or whether it's significant, but I didn't expect it.

ggplot2 documentations don't agree

Hadley's book(p. 196) says hjust and vjust can accept string arguments:

Justification of a string (or legend) defines the location within the string that is placed at the given position. There are two values for horizontal and vertical justification. The values can be:

A string: "left", "right", "centre", "center", "bottom", and "top".

A number between 0 and 1, giving the position within the string (from bottom-left corner).

But the man file for geom_text() in version 0.8.9 says hjust and vjust are numeric, though it doesn't say they can only be numeric:

Aesthetics

The following aesthetics can be used with geom_text. Aesthetics are mapped to variables in the data with the aes function: geom_text(aes(x = var))

x: x position (required)

y: y position (required)

label: text label (required)

colour: border colour

size: size

angle: angle

hjust: horizontal justification, between 0 and 1

vjust: vertical justification, between 0 and 1

alpha: transparency

William Doane · Accepted Answer

So, I don't know much about WHAT CODE defines or consumes hjust/vjust, but using TextMate's "Find in project" (in the ggplot2/R/ directory) for hjust, I don't see any lines that look like they are the definition of or the implementation of hjust... just places where it's listed as a valid aes and where it gets passed along.

That makes me want to go read grid...

http://stat.ethz.ch/R-manual/R-patched/library/grid/html/grid.text.html

which leads me to want to know more about how grid.text is defined

R> grid.text

function (label, x = unit(0.5, "npc"), y = unit(0.5, "npc"), 
    just = "centre", hjust = NULL, vjust = NULL, rot = 0, check.overlap = FALSE, 
    default.units = "npc", name = NULL, gp = gpar(), draw = TRUE, 
    vp = NULL) 
{
    tg <- textGrob(label = label, x = x, y = y, just = just, 
        hjust = hjust, vjust = vjust, rot = rot, check.overlap = check.overlap, 
        default.units = default.units, name = name, gp = gp, 
        vp = vp)
    if (draw) 
        grid.draw(tg)
    invisible(tg)
}

so, it's a textGrob, and just, hjust, and vjust are simply being passed into it... off to textGrob

R> textGrob
function (label, x = unit(0.5, "npc"), y = unit(0.5, "npc"), 
    just = "centre", hjust = NULL, vjust = NULL, rot = 0, check.overlap = FALSE, 
    default.units = "npc", name = NULL, gp = gpar(), vp = NULL) 
{
    if (!is.unit(x)) 
        x <- unit(x, default.units)
    if (!is.unit(y)) 
        y <- unit(y, default.units)
    grob(label = label, x = x, y = y, just = just, hjust = hjust, 
        vjust = vjust, rot = rot, check.overlap = check.overlap, 
        name = name, gp = gp, vp = vp, cl = "text")
}

so, it's a grob........... off to grob......

R> grob
function (..., name = NULL, gp = NULL, vp = NULL, cl = NULL) 
{
    g <- list(..., name = name, gp = gp, vp = vp)
    if (!is.null(cl) && !is.character(cl)) 
        stop("Invalid 'grob' class")
    class(g) <- c(cl, "grob", "gDesc")
    validGrob(g)
}

Nothing too helpful there, so I Google

R grid hjust vjust

and after overriding Google's autocorrect of my search, I find

http://rwiki.sciviews.org/doku.php?id=tips:graphics-grid:hvjust

Looking back at Hadley's book, I notice that the p.196 reference doesn't actually MENTION hjust or vjust... simply justification.

Reading the documentation for

R> ?textGrob

I see that

just     The justification of the text relative to its (x, y) location. If there are two values, the first value specifies horizontal justification and the second value specifies vertical justification. Possible string values are: "left", "right", "centre", "center", "bottom", and "top". For numeric values, 0 means left alignment and 1 means right alignment.
hjust    A numeric vector specifying horizontal justification. If specified, overrides the just setting.
vjust    A numeric vector specifying vertical justification. If specified, overrides the just setting.

So, here's my thinking.

the just parameter can be string or numeric
hjust and vjust are numeric only and can override just
if you try to use strings for them, it may "work", but throw warnings

So, lets look at the grid.text demo code and in particular the draw.text function where they use just and seem to do so successfully with string values:

grid.newpage()
x <- stats::runif(20)
y <- stats::runif(20)
rot <- stats::runif(20, 0, 360)
grid.text("SOMETHING NICE AND BIG", x=x, y=y, rot=rot,
          gp=gpar(fontsize=20, col="grey"))
grid.text("SOMETHING NICE AND BIG", x=x, y=y, rot=rot,
          gp=gpar(fontsize=20), check=TRUE)
grid.newpage()

draw.text <- function(just, i, j) {
  grid.text("ABCD", x=x[j], y=y[i], just=just)
  grid.text(deparse(substitute(just)), x=x[j], y=y[i] + unit(2, "lines"),
            gp=gpar(col="grey", fontsize=8))
}

x <- unit(1:4/5, "npc")
y <- unit(1:4/5, "npc")
grid.grill(h=y, v=x, gp=gpar(col="grey"))
draw.text(c("bottom"), 1, 1)
draw.text(c("left", "bottom"), 2, 1)
draw.text(c("right", "bottom"), 3, 1)
draw.text(c("centre", "bottom"), 4, 1)
draw.text(c("centre"), 1, 2)
draw.text(c("left", "centre"), 2, 2)
draw.text(c("right", "centre"), 3, 2)
draw.text(c("centre", "centre"), 4, 2)
draw.text(c("top"), 1, 3)
draw.text(c("left", "top"), 2, 3)
draw.text(c("right", "top"), 3, 3)
draw.text(c("centre", "top"), 4, 3)
draw.text(c(), 1, 4)
draw.text(c("left"), 2, 4)
draw.text(c("right"), 3, 4)
draw.text(c("centre"), 4, 4)

Now notice the difference if I change draw.text to use hjust and vjust AS STRINGS

grid.newpage()
x <- stats::runif(20)
y <- stats::runif(20)
rot <- stats::runif(20, 0, 360)
grid.text("SOMETHING NICE AND BIG", x=x, y=y, rot=rot,
          gp=gpar(fontsize=20, col="grey"))
grid.text("SOMETHING NICE AND BIG", x=x, y=y, rot=rot,
          gp=gpar(fontsize=20), check=TRUE)
grid.newpage()

draw.text <- function(just, i, j) {
  grid.text("ABCD", x=x[j], y=y[i], hjust=just[1], vjust=just[2])
  grid.text(deparse(substitute(just)), x=x[j], y=y[i] + unit(2, "lines"),
            gp=gpar(col="grey", fontsize=8))
}  

x <- unit(1:4/5, "npc")
y <- unit(1:4/5, "npc")
grid.grill(h=y, v=x, gp=gpar(col="grey"))
draw.text(c("bottom"), 1, 1)
draw.text(c("left", "bottom"), 2, 1)
draw.text(c("right", "bottom"), 3, 1)
draw.text(c("centre", "bottom"), 4, 1)
draw.text(c("centre"), 1, 2)
draw.text(c("left", "centre"), 2, 2)
draw.text(c("right", "centre"), 3, 2)
draw.text(c("centre", "centre"), 4, 2)
draw.text(c("top"), 1, 3)
draw.text(c("left", "top"), 2, 3)
draw.text(c("right", "top"), 3, 3)
draw.text(c("centre", "top"), 4, 3)
draw.text(c(), 1, 4)
draw.text(c("left"), 2, 4)
draw.text(c("right"), 3, 4)
draw.text(c("centre"), 4, 4)

Long story-short: I think when you use hjust or vjust as a string, you're violating the documentation (it's value should be numeric 0 <= x <= 1), and that if you want to use strings, you have to use the just parameter....

Why does geom_text() throw coercion errors when hjust and vjust are strings?

ggplot2 documentations don't agree

Answers (2)

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