102

While trying to overlay a new line to a existing ggplot, I am getting the following error:

Error: ggplot2 doesn't know how to deal with data of class uneval

The first part of my code works fine. Below is an image of "recent" hourly wind generation data from a Midwestern United States electric power market.

Recent Hourly Wind Data

Now I want to overlay the last two days worth of observations in Red. It should be easy but I cant figure out why I am getting a error.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Below is a reproducible example:

# Read in Wind data
fname <- "https://www.midwestiso.org/Library/Repository/Market%20Reports/20130510_hwd_HIST.csv"
df <- read.csv(fname, header=TRUE, sep="," , skip=7)
df <- df[1:(length(df$MKTHOUR)-5),]

# format variables
df$MWh <- as.numeric(df$MWh)
df$Datetime <- strptime(df$MKTHOUR, "%m/%d/%y %I:%M %p")

# Create some variables
df$Date  <- as.Date(df$Datetime)
df$HrEnd <- df$Datetime$hour+1

# Subset recent and last data
last.obs  <- range(df$Date)[2]
df.recent <- subset(df, Date %in% seq(last.obs-30, last.obs-2, by=1))
df.last   <- subset(df, Date %in% seq(last.obs-2,  last.obs,   by=1))

# plot recent in Grey
p <- ggplot(df.recent, aes(HrEnd, MWh, group=factor(Date))) + 
  geom_line(color="grey") +
  scale_y_continuous(labels = comma) + 
  scale_x_continuous(breaks = seq(1,24,1)) +
  labs(y="MWh") + 
  labs(x="Hour Ending") + 
  labs(title="Hourly Wind Generation")    
p

# plot last two days in Red
p <- p + geom_line(df.last, aes(HrEnd, MWh, group=factor(Date)), color="red")  
p
Improve this question
0

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
165

when you add a new data set to a geom you need to use the data= argument. Or put the arguments in the proper order mapping=..., data=.... Take a look at the arguments for ?geom_line.

Thus:

p + geom_line(data=df.last, aes(HrEnd, MWh, group=factor(Date)), color="red")

Or:

p + geom_line(aes(HrEnd, MWh, group=factor(Date)), df.last, color="red")
Improve this answer
Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

2 Comments

ouch thats kind of embarrasing!! but I wont ever make that mistake again. Thanks Justin
No its not! and yes you will! Glad I could steer you in the right direction and now its here for posterity.
13

Another cause is accidentally putting the data=... inside the aes(...) instead of outside:

RIGHT:
ggplot(data=df[df$var7=='9-06',], aes(x=lifetime,y=rep_rate,group=mdcp,color=mdcp) ...)

WRONG:
ggplot(aes(data=df[df$var7=='9-06',],x=lifetime,y=rep_rate,group=mdcp,color=mdcp) ...)

In particular this can happen when you prototype your plot command with qplot(), which doesn't use an explicit aes(), then edit/copy-and-paste it into a ggplot()

qplot(data=..., x=...,y=..., ...)

ggplot(data=..., aes(x=...,y=...,...))

It's a pity ggplot's error message isn't Missing 'data' argument! instead of this cryptic nonsense, because that's what this message often means.

Improve this answer

Comments

4

This could also occur if you refer to a variable in the data.frame that doesn't exist. For example, recently I forgot to tell ddply to summarize by one of my variables that I used in geom_line to specify line color. Then, ggplot didn't know where to find the variable I hadn't created in the summary table, and I got this error.

Improve this answer

1 Comment

This error could also happen if you forget to pipe ggplot with +. I accidentally used dplyr's %>% operator and ggplot didn't get the lines it needed to complete the plot.

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.