R: Setting limits to scale_x_yearqtr in ggplot for yearqtr (zoo)

as.date, ggplot2, r, time-series, zoo

Solution

I think you just didn't specify the `limits` properly. In addition, to achieve greater control over the appearance, use the `breaks` argument (rather than `n`).

# some data
df <- data.frame(x = as.yearqtr(2004 + seq(3, 8)/4), y = sample(1:6)) 

# setting limits only
ggplot(data = df, aes(x, y, group = 1)) +
  geom_line() +
  scale_x_yearqtr(limits = c(min(df$x), max(df$x)),
                  format = "%YQ%q")

# setting breaks
ggplot(data = df, aes(x, y, group = 1)) +
  geom_line() +
  scale_x_yearqtr(breaks = seq(from = min(df$x), to = max(df$x), by = 0.25),
                  format = "%YQ%q")

Problem

I'm working with the data set resembling the extract below: ``` head(nomis.lng.agg) quarter decile avg.val 1 2004 Q4 1 5.680000 2 2005 Q1 1 5.745763 3 2005 Q2 1 5.503341 4 2005 Q3 1 5.668224 5 2005 Q4 1 5.244604 6 2006 Q1 1 5.347222 ``` The variable quarter is of class `yearqtr` as generated by `zoo`. The remaining two columns are numerical. I'm currently generating a plot that uses the following `ggplot` syntax: ``` ggplot(data = subset(x = df, subset = df$decile== 1 | df$decile== 10), aes(x = quarter, y = avg.val, group = decile)) + geom_line(aes(linetype=as.factor(decile)), size = 1) + scale_x_yearqtr(format = "%YQ%q", n = 5) + xlab("Quarter") + ylab("Average val") + ggtitle("Plot") + scale_linetype_discrete(name="Legend") + theme(panel.background = element_blank(), axis.line = element_line(colour = "black"), axis.text = element_text(size = 12, colour = "black"), axis.title = element_text(size = 14, colour = "black"), panel.grid.minor = element_blank(), panel.grid.major.y = element_line(colour = "gray"), panel.grid.major.x = element_blank(), axis.text = element_text(size = 12, colour = "black"), legend.text = element_text(size = 12), legend.title = element_text(size = 12), legend.key.width=unit(1.5,"cm"), legend.position = "bottom", legend.key = element_rect(fill = "white"), legend.background = element_rect(colour = "black"), plot.title = element_text(face="bold"), plot.background = element_rect(colour = "black")) ``` The plot is almost perfect with exception of the x-axis. The current x-axis looks like that: My focus is on the code `scale_x_yearqtr(format = "%YQ%q", n = 5)`. As my data starts from 2004 Q4 I'm not interested in plotting 2004 Q1, but I want to set the limits with: ``` scale_x_yearqtr(format = "%YQ%q", limits=c(min(quarter), max=max(quarter))) ``` However, this doesn't yield the desired results, despite: ``` min(df$quarter) [1] "2004 Q4" ```

Original source