CODEWITHSUNDEEP
rdateggplot2axis
Mathica
Mathica

Reputation: 1303

how to skip every other date label on x-axis in ggplot R

consider plot below ( data is from the useful link : How to create custom date labels using ggplot with scale_x_date )

start_date <- as.Date('2020-08-08')
end_date <- as.Date('2021-05-10')

# tibble with test data
df <- tibble( dates = as.Date(as.character(seq(start_date, end_date, by = 4) ) ), 
                 yval = as.numeric(strftime(dates, format = "%d")),
                 # following two lines just to give some color to the plot
                 month = strftime(dates, format = "%m") ) %>%
                 group_by( month ) 
df
  ggplot(df, aes( x=dates, y=yval, color = month ) ) +
  geom_point() +
  scale_x_date(date_labels = "%b %d", breaks = "1 month")

enter image description here

what I want is NOT to have the 2nd, the 4th , the 6th,... labels on the xaxis.
I tried "2 month" for breaks but it does the opposite and removes the 1st , 3d, 5th, ... labels.
any ideas how to do this ( preferably without manually specifying the labels one by one )

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1041

Answers (2)

Quinten
Quinten

Reputation: 41533

Another option is setting limits in scale_x_date where you set the month before your first date because your first date is later and then it will start breaking from the first date instead of the second date. Here is a reproducible example:

library(tibble)
library(dplyr)
start_date <- as.Date('2020-08-08')
end_date <- as.Date('2021-05-10')

# tibble with test data
df <- tibble( dates = as.Date(as.character(seq(start_date, end_date, by = 4) ) ), 
              yval = as.numeric(strftime(dates, format = "%d")),
              # following two lines just to give some color to the plot
              month = strftime(dates, format = "%m") ) %>%
  group_by( month ) 
library(ggplot2)
ggplot(df, aes( x=dates, y=yval, color = month ) ) +
  geom_point() +
  scale_x_date(date_labels = "%b %d", breaks = "2 month", limits = c(as.Date("2020-07-01"), NA))

Created on 2022-08-23 with reprex v2.0.2

Upvotes: 2

Gregor Thomas
Gregor Thomas

Reputation: 146120

I tried to get this passing a function to breaks but that didn't work, so I made the sequence directly using start_date and end_date:

ggplot(df, aes( x=dates, y=yval, color = month ) ) +
  geom_point() +
  scale_x_date(
    date_labels = "%b %d", 
    breaks = 
      seq(from = floor_date(start_date, "month"), to = end_date, by = "2 months"))
  )

enter image description here

Upvotes: 3

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