R help - Sep 2003 - PlotMoth Refusing to Draw xlab

Occasionally I have had plotmath refuse to draw x-axis labels.  This has
happened when the label, created using expression(paste( ) ) as below, could be
drawn easily in the available space.  I have not reproduced that, but the
following example with a clearly overly long label results in no xlab at all.  I
hoped that at least a truncated label would be plotted.  This is probably
related to my original problem.


plot(0,0,xlab=expression(paste('1234567890abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwzyz
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPARSTUVWXYZ')))

platform i386-pc-linux-gnu
arch     i386             
os       linux-gnu        
system   i386, linux-gnu  
status                    
major    1                
minor    7.1              
year     2003             
month    06               
day      16               
language R                

Thanks for any assistance  -Frank
---
Frank E Harrell Jr    Professor and Chair            School of Medicine
                      Department of Biostatistics    Vanderbilt University

Frank E Harrell Jr wrote:
> Occasionally I have had plotmath refuse to draw x-axis labels.  This has
happened when the label, created using expression(paste( ) ) as below, could be
drawn easily in the available space.  I have not reproduced that, but the
following example with a clearly overly long label results in no xlab at all.  I
hoped that at least a truncated label would be plotted.  This is probably
related to my original problem.
> 
> 
> plot(0,0,xlab=expression(paste('1234567890abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwzyz
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPARSTUVWXYZ')))
> 
> platform i386-pc-linux-gnu
> arch     i386             
> os       linux-gnu        
> system   i386, linux-gnu  
> status                    
> major    1                
> minor    7.1              
> year     2003             
> month    06               
> day      16               
> language R                
> 
> Thanks for any assistance  -Frank
I believe this is a clipping problem.  Strings placed outside the device 
area are clipped (this is to nasty avoid problems with some devices).
This means discarding the entire string.  Plain text strings and
expressions are handled differently in this regard, but there will be
a unification of this in the near future and that may be the time to
address it.

The only work around I can suggest is using larger margins.


-- 
Ross Ihaka                         Email:  ihaka at stat.auckland.ac.nz
Department of Statistics           Phone:  (64-9) 373-7599 x 85054
University of Auckland             Fax:    (64-9) 373-7018
Private Bag 92019, Auckland
New Zealand