programming with ggplot using aes_ or aes_string with special characters in column names

Question

I need to run ggplot in a function. The input data.frame/tibble passed to the function has special characters (white spaces, commas etc.) in the columns with data to be plotted. The column names to be plotted are passed as arguments to the function. Here is a working example, both aes_ and aes_string fail, but for different reasons. Help appreciated

trial.tbl_df <- tibble(a = 1:3, `complex, `=4:6)

plotfunc <- function(tbl2plot,yvar){

  ggplot(tbl2plot,aes_(x = "a", y = yvar )) + 
    geom_point()

}

plotfunc(tbl2plot = trial.tbl_df, yvar = `complex, `)

Note that aes_ and aes_string are both soft-deprecated in ggplot2, I suggest you look into programmatic quasi-quotation methods. Look for tutorials on "tidy evaluation", such as dplyr.tidyverse.org/articles/programming.html. — r2evans
– r2evans, Commented Oct 13, 2021 at 19:44

Ronak Shah · Accepted Answer · 2021-10-14 04:27:39Z

2

aes_ and aes_string both are used when you pass column names as string. Since both of them are deprecated you can use .data.

library(ggplot2)

trial.tbl_df <- tibble::tibble(a = 1:3, `complex, `=4:6)

plotfunc <- function(tbl2plot,yvar){
  
  ggplot(tbl2plot,aes(x = a, y = .data[[yvar]])) + 
    geom_point()
  
}

plotfunc(tbl2plot = trial.tbl_df, yvar = "complex, ")

PS - Not sure why you have such complex name for the column instead of standard one.

answered Oct 14, 2021 at 4:27

Ronak Shah

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danh · Accepted Answer · 2021-10-13 20:47:39Z

1

As @r2evans mentioned, you can use tidy evaluation as aes_ and aes_string are deprecated:

trial.tbl_df <- tibble(a = 1:3, `complex, `=4:6)


plotfunc <- function(data, y){
  
  y <- enquo(y)

  ggplot(data, aes(x = a, y = !!y)) + 
    geom_point()
  
}

plotfunc(data = trial.tbl_df,  y = `complex, `)

answered Oct 13, 2021 at 20:47

danh

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SmokeyShakers · Accepted Answer · 2021-10-13 20:16:42Z

0

How about using aes_ and as.name:

trial.tbl_df <- tibble(a = 1:3, `complex, `=4:6)

plotfunc <- function(tbl2plot,yvar){
  
  ggplot(tbl2plot ,aes_(x = ~a, y = as.name(yvar))) + 
    geom_point()
  
}

plotfunc(tbl2plot = trial.tbl_df, yvar = "complex, ")

answered Oct 13, 2021 at 20:16

SmokeyShakers

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