CODEWITHSUNDEEP
rggplot2purrr
tlk27
tlk27

Reputation: 309

Making Multiple Plots from a Function call in R studio

I am relatively new to R. My question results from a project in an online learning course. I am using R studio to make multiple plots from a function call. I want a new plot for each column which represents the y-axis while the x-axis remains equal to the month. The function works when displaying a single variable. However, when I try the function call using multiple columns I receive:

"Error: More than one expression parsed"

Similar code worked in the online program's simulated platform.

I have provided my code below with a small sample from the data frame. Is it possible to derive multiple plots in this way? If so, how can I update or correct my code to make the plot for each column.

month <- c('mar', 'oct', 'oct')
day <- c('fri', 'tue', 'sat')
FFMC <- c(86.2, 90.6, 90.6)
DMC <- c(26.2, 35.4, 43.7)
DC <- c(94.3, 669.1, 686.9)
ISI <- c(5.1, 6.7, 6.7)
temp <- c(8.2, 18.0, 14.6)
RH <- c(51, 33, 33)
wind <- c(6.7, 0.9, 1.3)
rain <- c(0.0, 0.0, 0.0)

forestfires_df <- data.frame(month, day, FFMC, DMC, DC, ISI, temp, RH, wind, rain)

library(ggplot2)
library(purrr)

month_box <- function(x , y) {
  ggplot(data = forestfires_df, aes_string(x = month, y = y_var)) + 
    geom_boxplot() +
    theme_bw()
}

month <- names(forestfires_df)[1]
y_var <- names(forestfires_df)[3:10]

month_plots <- map2(month, y_var, month_box) 

#After running month_plots I receive "Error: More than one expression parsed"

Upvotes: 1

Views: 634

Answers (2)

camille
camille

Reputation: 16842

Like I mentioned in a comment, aes_string has been soft-deprecated in favor of using tidyeval to write ggplot2 functions. You can rewrite your function as a simple tidyeval-based one, then map over the columns of interest passing bare column names or their positions the way you would with most other tidyverse functions.

There are a couple ways to write a function like this. The older way is with quosures and unquoting columns, but its syntax can be confusing. dplyr comes with a very in-depth vignette, but I like this blog post as a quick guide.

month_box_quo <- function(x, y) {
  x_var <- enquo(x)
  y_var <- enquo(y)
  ggplot(forestfires_df, aes(x = !!x_var, y = !!y_var)) +
    geom_boxplot()
}

A single call looks like this, with bare column names:

month_box_quo(x = month, y = DMC)

Or with map_at and column positions (or with vars()):

# mapped over variables of interest; assumes y gets the mapped-over column
map_at(forestfires_df, 3:10, month_box_quo, x = month)
# or with formula shorthand
map_at(forestfires_df, 3:10, ~month_box_quo(x = month, y = .))

The newer tidyeval syntax ({{}}, or curly-curly) is easier to follow, and returns the same list of plots as above.

month_box_curly <- function(x, y) {
  ggplot(forestfires_df, aes(x = {{ x }}, y = {{ y }})) +
    geom_boxplot()
}

Upvotes: 0

akrun
akrun

Reputation: 887108

The issue is that the function arguments should match the ones inside

month_box <- function(x , y) {
   ggplot(data = forestfires_df, aes_string(x = x, y = y)) + 
   geom_boxplot() +
   theme_bw()
 }

If we use 'month' and 'y_var', 'y_var' is of length 8 and that is the reason we do the looping in map. With the change, the map2 should work as expected

map2(month, y_var, month_box)

Or using anonymous function

map2(month, y_var, ~ month_box(.x, .y))

Upvotes: 2

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