Formatting names.arg

I am making a barplot using barplot2 from gplots and would like to  
format the names of my categorical variables (tree species) on the x- 
axis so that the genus name is above the species name (to save room).  
My code so far is:

speciesnames<-c("Dialium guianensis", "Inga alba", "Tachigali  
versicolor", "Brosimum utile", "Caryocar costaricense", "Castilla  
tunu", "Otoba novagranatensis", "Pourouma bicolor", "Socratea  
exorrhiza")
barplot2(meanapAprilactivity, names.arg=speciesnames, col=columncolor,  
xlab="Species", ylab="Soil acid phosphatase activity (nmol/h/g)",  
plot.ci=T, ci.l=apAprilminusordered, ci.u=apAprilplusordered,  
cex.lab=1.5)

For example, I want 'Dialium' to be located above 'guianensis' on the  
x-axis. Is there a way to do this?

Thanks,

Adrienne Keller

I am making a barplot using barplot2 from gplots and would like to  
format the names of my categorical variables (tree species) on the x- 
axis so that the genus name is above the species name (to save room).  
My code so far is:

On May 23, 2011, at 3:13 PM, Adrienne Keller wrote:

I am making a barplot using barplot2 from gplots and would like to
format the names of my categorical variables (tree species) on the x-
axis so that the genus name is above the species name (to save room).
My code so far is:

speciesnames<-c("Dialium guianensis", "Inga alba", "Tachigali
versicolor", "Brosimum utile", "Caryocar costaricense", "Castilla
tunu", "Otoba novagranatensis", "Pourouma bicolor", "Socratea
exorrhiza")
barplot2(meanapAprilactivity, names.arg=speciesnames,  
col=columncolor,
xlab="Species", ylab="Soil acid phosphatase activity (nmol/h/g)",
plot.ci=T, ci.l=apAprilminusordered, ci.u=apAprilplusordered,
cex.lab=1.5)

For example, I want 'Dialium' to be located above 'guianensis' on the
x-axis. Is there a way to do this?

Thanks,

Adrienne Keller

Hi,

Just replace the space between the names with a newline character  
('\n'):

 barplot(1:9, names.arg = gsub(" ", "\\\n", speciesnames),
         cex.names = 0.5)

That will put the labels on two lines.

See ?gsub and note that I used 3 '\' preceding the 'n'.

On May 23, 2011, at 4:32 PM, Marc Schwartz wrote:

On May 23, 2011, at 3:13 PM, Adrienne Keller wrote:

I am making a barplot using barplot2 from gplots and would like to
format the names of my categorical variables (tree species) on the x-
axis so that the genus name is above the species name (to save room).
My code so far is:

speciesnames<-c("Dialium guianensis", "Inga alba", "Tachigali
versicolor", "Brosimum utile", "Caryocar costaricense", "Castilla
tunu", "Otoba novagranatensis", "Pourouma bicolor", "Socratea
exorrhiza")
barplot2(meanapAprilactivity, names.arg=speciesnames, col=columncolor,
xlab="Species", ylab="Soil acid phosphatase activity (nmol/h/g)",
plot.ci=T, ci.l=apAprilminusordered, ci.u=apAprilplusordered,
cex.lab=1.5)

For example, I want 'Dialium' to be located above 'guianensis' on the
x-axis. Is there a way to do this?

Thanks,

Adrienne Keller

Hi,

Just replace the space between the names with a newline character ('\n'):

barplot(1:9, names.arg = gsub(" ", "\\\n", speciesnames),
        cex.names = 0.5)

That will put the labels on two lines.

See ?gsub and note that I used 3 '\' preceding the 'n'.

Except that tripling of "\" is not necessary with the second argument to gsub or sub, only with the first pattern argument.

speciesnames<-c("Dialium guianensis", "Inga alba", "Tachigali versicolor", "Brosimum utile", "Caryocar costaricense", "Castilla tunu", "Otoba novagranatensis", "Pourouma bicolor", "Socratea exorrhiza")

sub(" ", "\n", speciesnames)

[1] "Dialium\nguianensis"    "Inga\nalba"
[3] "Tachigali\nversicolor"  "Brosimum\nutile"
[5] "Caryocar\ncostaricense" "Castilla\ntunu"
[7] "Otoba\nnovagranatensis" "Pourouma\nbicolor"
[9] "Socratea\nexorrhiza"