x-axis (categorial variable) ordering with xyplot function (lattice package)

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Hi

For an xyplot you have not got the proper coding for the x value which 
should be numeric.

If you want to make a plot of the style of xyplot a numerical index of 
the country is needed and then use the scales argument to annote the 
labels with the country.
Do you want multiple panels ?

A self contained dataset via dput would help elicit further information.

Have a look at the outer and related arguments as well as the group 
arguments. A combined index for regions with countries may be necessary.

Regards

Duncan

Duncan Mackay
Department of Agronomy and Soil Science
University of New England
Armidale NSW 2351
Email: home: mackay at northnet.com.au


At 00:17 25/07/2013, you wrote:

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Dear R mailing list readers,

I am facing the following problem; for simplicity imagine I am 
working on a data frame of, say, 5 columns. The first column is a 
list of European countries, the other four are an index (continuous 
variable) of climate change impact under 4 different scenarios.

Country

2050B2

2050A2

2080B2

2080A2

Austria

-0.2

-0.6

...



Belgium

-0.2

-0.6





Bulgaria

-0.5

-0.8





Czech republic

-0.5

-0.8





United kingdom

-0.2

-0.6






I am using the package lattice to make a nice plot of the dots from 
the different scenario using the following code;

my.plot <- xyplot(2050B2+2050A2+2080B2+2080A2~country, data=my.dat,
scales=list(x=list(rot=45)))

note: the part "scales=list(x=list(rot=45))" is pure aesthetic here.

So far, so good. However, I wish to order the x-axis (countries) by 
grouping them by European region; i.e Austria, Belgium and United 
kingdom are western Europe, while Bulgaria and Czech republic are 
eastern Europe. In excel I added a new "region) variable (i.e 1 for 
Western Europe, 2 for eastern Europe) and I re-ordered my data frame 
according to this "region" variable.

I then imported this updated data frame in R, and checked how it 
looked with the usual code;

pot_dat <-read.csv(file.choose(),header=TRUE, sep=";",dec=".")
pot_dat

Again, so far so good; my second column ("country") is now ordered 
according to the values of the first column ("region").

Region

Country

2050B2

2050A2

2080B2

2080A2

1

Austria

-0.2

-0.6

...



1

Belgium

-0.2

-0.6





1

United Kingdom

-0.2

-0.6





2

Bulgaria

-0.5

-0.8





2

Czech republic

-0.5

-0.8







However, when I try to use the code as above, R automatically 
re-order the x-axis (country) in alphabetical order. This was not 
unexpected, but I have spent the day (unsuccessfully) looking for a 
way to simply tell R not to do that and to keep the variable 
"country" as it is now ordered in the data frame to construct the 
x-axis of my plot. Is there any way to force it to keep the order as 
it is in the data frame ?

Any help would be really welcomed !

Best,

Arnaud Blaser
PhD candidate
University of Neuch?tel
Institute of Economic Research (IRENE)
Pierre-?-Mazel 7
CH-2000 Neuch?tel


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