Summary of arguments to high-level plotting functions

Basic skills in R: Basic graphics

Summary of arguments to high-level plotting functions

There are a number of arguments which may be passed to high-level graphics functions, as follows:

add = TRUE Some functions only: it forces the plotting function to act as a low-level plotting function, superimposing the plot on the current plot.

axes = FALSE It suppresses generation of axes—useful for adding your own custom axes with the function axis(). The default, axes=TRUE, means include axes.

log = "x"
log = "y"
log = "xy" This causes the \(x\)-axis, \(y\)-axis, or both axes to be logarithmic. This will work for many, but not all, types of plot.

type = letter

The argument type controls the type of plot produced, as follows:

`type = "p"`	Draw individual points (the default).
`type = "l"`	Draw line segments through the points.
`type = "o"`	Draw line segments over the top of the points.
`type = "b"`	Draw both points and lines, but do not overplot.
`type = "h"`	Draw histogram-like vertical line segments.
`type = "s"`	Draw a staircase, going vertically and horizontally.
`type = "n"`	No plotting at all. However axes are still drawn (by default) and the coordinate system is set up according to the data. Ideal for creating plots with subsequent low-level plotting functions.

main = string It places a title of a figure at the top of the plot in a large font.

sub = string It places a sub-title of a figure at the bottom of the plot in a smaller font.

xlab = string
ylab = string It places axis labels for the \(x\)- and \(y\)-axes. Use these arguments to change the default labels, usually the names of the objects used in the call to the high-level plotting function.

xlim = x_range
ylim = y_range You can specify ranges of the horizontal and vertical axis by setting the argument xlim and ylim, respectively. A range is specified as c(begin, end).

las = 0,1,2 Orientation of axis labels: 0 means always parallel to axis, 1 means always horizontal, and 2 means always perpendicular to the axis.

mai = c(s₁, s₂,
\(\phantom{abcdefi}\)s₃, s₄)
mar = c(s₁, s₂,
\(\phantom{abcdefi}\)s₃, s₄) Specifation of the size of the margins in a plotting function , where s₁, s₂, s₃, and s₄ are the sizes of the bottom, left, top and right margins, respectively, measured in inches (in case of mai) or in the number of text lines (in case of mar).