How to customize x-axis labels for a stacked bar plot graph?

[lfaller]

Hi all,

I am trying to create a stacked area plot and label the x axis with the variables using scale_x_discrete.

However, as soon as I add scale_x_discrete to my code, the x axis gets wiped out:

My code looks as follows:

library(ggplot2)

set.seed(11)
df <- data.frame(a = rlnorm(30), b = 1:10, c = rep(LETTERS[1:3], each = 10))

ggplot(df, aes(x = b, y = a, fill = c)) + 
  geom_area(position = 'stack') +
  scale_x_discrete(labels = levels(as.factor(df$b))) +
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 90, hjust = 1))

Has this been a recent change? I have definitely been able to do this before and it didn't seem tricky, but I recently upgraded packages, so I'm not sure if that's what happened. Is there another function I can use to add x-axis labels to a stacked area plot?

Thanks for any advice you might have!
~Lina

[cderv]

I think there are no problems with the package.

df$b is integer in your example. So x-axis should be continuous not discrete. Then I think you want to control the breaks not the labels. Note that you could get each integer with unique

library(ggplot2)
set.seed(11)
df <- data.frame(a = rlnorm(30), b = 1:10, c = rep(LETTERS[1:3], each = 10))
ggplot(df, aes(x = b, y = a, fill = c)) + 
    geom_area(position = 'stack') +
    scale_x_continuous(breaks = unique(df$b)) +
    theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 90, hjust = 1))

[lfaller]

Ah, this makes sense -- thanks for the hints!

I have some more dataframes I want to plot similarly where b is not an integer but a factor.

I figured out that I can plot it using aes(x = as.numeric(b) ... as in this code:

library(ggplot2)
set.seed(11)
df <- data.frame(a = rlnorm(30), b = as.factor(1:10), c = rep(LETTERS[1:3], each = 10))
ggplot(df, aes(x = as.numeric(b), y = a, fill = c)) + 
    geom_area(position = 'stack')

Since I am now dealing with factors, I assume I need to go back to scale_x_discrete but using scale_x_discrete(labels = levels(df$b)) to get the labels on the x-axis didn't work.

If anyone else has any suggestions, I'd appreciate it!

Best,
~Lina

[cderv]

It is not a good idea to as.numeric with factor as explained in the help page ?factor.

And since you map on x a numeric variable, as.numeric(b), then you scale on x is still continuous, not discrete so it is the same : use scale_x_continous and breaks argument.
However if you map a factor variable on x, it should work.

By the way, I think you should post your questions on website like Stackoverflow rather than on the issues of a package. It is not the right place to get help as it is dedicated to report issues and feature request.
However, I tried to give you some new hints, hope it is clearer.

[lfaller]

Thanks for the help, I appreciate it!

[thomasp85]

Related to #1589

[hadley]

Closing as duplicate