ggplot: arranging boxplots of multiple y-variables for each group of a continuous x

boxplot, continuous, ggplot2, r, r-factor

Solution

Not exactly sure what you're looking for. Is this close?

library(ggplot2)
library(plyr)
ggplot(dfmelt, aes(x=factor(round_any(x,0.5)), y=value,fill=variable))+
  geom_boxplot()+
  facet_grid(.~variable)+
  labs(x="X (binned)")+
  theme(axis.text.x=element_text(angle=-90, vjust=0.4,hjust=1))

EDIT (response to OP's comment)

You can put the Y's next to each other in each bin by just taking out the `facet_grid(...)` call, but I don't recommend it.

ggplot(dfmelt, aes(x=factor(round_any(x,0.5)), y=value, fill=variable))+
  geom_boxplot()+
  labs(x="X (binned)")+
  theme(axis.text.x=element_text(angle=-90, vjust=0.4,hjust=1))

If you have to do it this way, it's still clearer using facets:

dfmelt$bin <- factor(round_any(dfmelt$x,0.5))
ggplot(dfmelt, aes(x=bin, y=value, fill=variable))+
  geom_boxplot()+
  facet_grid(.~bin, scales="free")+
  labs(x="X (binned)")+
  theme(axis.text.x=element_blank())

Note the addition of a `bin` column to `dfmelt`. This is because using `factor(round_any(x,0.5))` in the `facet_grid(...)` formula doesn't work.

Problem

I would like to create boxplots of multiple variables for groups of a continuous x-variable. The boxplots should be arranged next to each other for each group of x. The data looks like this: ``` require (ggplot2) require (plyr) library(reshape2) set.seed(1234) x <- rnorm(100) y.1 <- rnorm(100) y.2 <- rnorm(100) y.3 <- rnorm(100) y.4 <- rnorm(100) df <- as.data.frame(cbind(x,y.1,y.2,y.3,y.4)) ``` which I then melted ``` dfmelt <- melt(df, measure.vars=2:5) ``` The facet_wrap as shown in this solution ( Multiple plots by factor in ggplot (facets)) gives me out each variable in an individual plot, but I would like to have the boxplots of each variable next to each other for each bin of x in one diagram. ``` ggplot(dfmelt, aes(value, x, group = round_any(x, 0.5), fill=variable))+ geom_boxplot() + geom_jitter() + facet_wrap(~variable) ``` This shows the y-variables next to each other but does not bin x. ``` ggplot(dfmelt) + geom_boxplot(aes(x=x,y=value,fill=variable))+ facet_grid(~variable) ``` Now I would like to produce such a plot for each bin of x. What has to be changed or added?

Original source