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Thought it would be easy but am running out of ideas here. I have three data.frame that I would like to plot in a single figure such that plot-A would contain line plots using data of column A from all the data.frame i.e., DF1,DF2,DF3, plot-B should contain line plots using data of column B from all data.frame and likewise for C. In the past I use facet_wrap, however, I have no idea how to go about this. here is my simple code which does not produce any plot but will give an idea what I want. A ggplot option would be great.

library(gridExtra)

DF1 = data.frame(Month = 1:12, A = runif(12, 1,10), B = runif(12,5,10), C = runif(12, 3,9))
DF2 = data.frame(Month = 1:12, A = runif(12, 4,13), B = runif(12,6,14), C = runif(12, 3,12))
DF3 = data.frame(Month = 1:12, A = runif(12, 2,15), B = runif(12,1,9), C = runif(12, 3,15))

G1 = plot(DF1$Month, y=DF1$A, "l")
lines(DF2$A, col = "red")
lines(DF3$A, col = "blue")

G2 = plot(DF1$Month, y=DF1$B, "l")
lines(DF2$B, col = "red")
lines(DF3$B, col = "blue")

G3 = plot(DF1$Month, y=DF1$C, "l")
lines(DF2$C, col = "red")
lines(DF3$C, col = "blue")

grid.arrange(G1,G2,G3, ncol = 3)

Note: in my example, I have three columns in each data.frame, however, I would like to apply the code over data.frame that have a large number of columns- not just three. so automating the process would help.

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  • "single figure" and "plot-A would contain" ... do you mean one PNG (or such) with three plots side-by-side? Commented Oct 31, 2019 at 2:00
  • @r2evans One PNG with three side by side plots Commented Oct 31, 2019 at 2:54
  • (Just curious, is there a reason in the base-R calls that you name y= but neither x= nor type=?) Commented Oct 31, 2019 at 2:57
  • Not sure if understood but x would be same for all- irresepective of data.frame used. I was just trying to convey my message, we can definitely use type with additional feature of plot functionality. Commented Oct 31, 2019 at 3:11
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    Your choice to not name x= and to name y= and not name type= is not invalid code, but it seems to straddle code practice/convention, that's all. Like I said, I'm just curious about that one, it is not meant as judgement or a criticism. (BTW: based on your comment to Louis, I suggest you need to be a little clearer in your question that you are trying to automate this based on larger numbers of columns. It's generally a good reproducible question, but that part was not clear to me either.) Commented Oct 31, 2019 at 3:16

2 Answers 2

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2

Like this

The only manual step is giving each data.frame an identifying column (possibly automate using this? Add column containing data frame name to a list of data frames)

Then you combine them all into one dataframe and gather the columns so that the data.frame is in long form. You can then use with facet_grid/facet_wrap as you mentioned

DF1 = data.frame(Month = 1:12, A = runif(12, 1,10), B = runif(12,5,10), C = runif(12, 3,9))
DF2 = data.frame(Month = 1:12, A = runif(12, 4,13), B = runif(12,6,14), C = runif(12, 3,12))
DF3 = data.frame(Month = 1:12, A = runif(12, 2,15), B = runif(12,1,9), C = runif(12, 3,15))


DF1$df <- "1"
DF2$df <- "2"
DF3$df <- "3"

library(tidyr)
library(ggplot2)
AllDf <- rbind(DF1,DF2,DF3)

AllDf_l <- AllDf %>% gather(Var,Value, A:C)

ggplot(AllDf_l, aes(x = Month, y = Value, colour = df))+geom_line()+
  facet_grid(Var~.)
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1 Comment

That's it- thank you @Sarah , I was looking for this one.
2

Use:

par(mfrow=c(1,3))

DF1 = data.frame(Month = 1:12, A = runif(12, 1,10), B = runif(12,5,10), C = runif(12, 3,9))
DF2 = data.frame(Month = 1:12, A = runif(12, 4,13), B = runif(12,6,14), C = runif(12, 3,12))
DF3 = data.frame(Month = 1:12, A = runif(12, 2,15), B = runif(12,1,9), C = runif(12, 3,15))

plot(DF1$Month, y=DF1$A, "l")
lines(DF2$A, col = "red")
lines(DF3$A, col = "blue")

plot(DF1$Month, y=DF1$B, "l")
lines(DF2$B, col = "red")
lines(DF3$B, col = "blue")

plot(DF1$Month, y=DF1$C, "l")
lines(DF2$C, col = "red")
lines(DF3$C, col = "blue")

You can reset the plotting area back to 1 x 1 with dev.off()

EDIT: A ggplot solution would be:

library(ggplot2)
library(gridExtra)
p1 <- ggplot(NULL)+
  geom_line(data = DF1,aes(x=Month,y=A),color="black")+
  geom_line(data = DF2,aes(x=Month,y=A),color="red")+
  geom_line(data = DF3,aes(x=Month,y=A),color="blue")

p2 <- ggplot(NULL)+
  geom_line(data = DF1,aes(x=Month,y=B),color="black")+
  geom_line(data = DF2,aes(x=Month,y=B),color="red")+
  geom_line(data = DF3,aes(x=Month,y=B),color="blue")

p3 <- ggplot(NULL)+
  geom_line(data = DF1,aes(x=Month,y=C),color="black")+
  geom_line(data = DF2,aes(x=Month,y=C),color="red")+
  geom_line(data = DF3,aes(x=Month,y=C),color="blue")

grid.arrange(p1,p2,p3,nrow=1)
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1 Comment

Hello Louis, this works. However, if each of my data.frame have around 12 columns then this solution would be too laborious. I guess, using gather or melt to arrange the three data.frame into sort of a summary data.frame and then using facet_wrap or Facet_grid may be a good way to automate the process- Sadly I have some understanding however, just can't come up with a solution. thanks for suggesting workaround.

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