R help - Dec 2008 - question about the tisPlot function in package tis

List,

I am using the 'tisPlot' function in Jeff Hallman's excellent tis
package
and was hoping that someone could spare me from having to dig into the 
code of his 'tisPlot' function.  So far as I can tell, the preferred 
method of controlling the plotting of the x-axis is using the
'xTickFreq'
and 'xTickSkip' options.  Unfortunately, the where the data ends up on
the
resultant plot is not invariant to this choice, as indicated in the 
documentation of the 'xTickFreq' option.  Has anyone adjusted the 
frequency of their x-axis label using this package before?  I imagine that 
there must be a better way of doing what I am trying to accomplish, but if 
not, does anyone have a suggestion on how to work around this without 
digging into the function itself?

## an example

library(tis)

strt <- ti(20000101, "monthly")
dat  <- tis(runif(9*12 - 1), start=strt) # ends in 11/2008

par(mfrow=c(2,1))
tisPlot(dat, xTickFreq="monthly", xTickSkip=6) # graph ends in
11/2008,
but looks to start some time in late 1999
tisPlot(dat, xTickFreq="monthly", xTickSkip=12) # graph looks to end 
around 3/2009

## end

TIA,

Kyle

___________________________________________
Research Associate, Macroeconomics
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]

The development version of zoo has a tis to zoo conversion function
that would allow you to plot your data using plot.zoo and xplot.zoo
in which case you can use classic graphics axis function (for plot.zoo)
or lattice facilities (with xyplot.zoo):

source("http://r-forge.r-project.org/plugins/scmsvn/viewcvs.php/*checkout*/pkg/R/as.zoo.tis.R?rev=524&root=zoo")
z <- as.zoo(dat, class = "yearmon")
plot(dat)
xyplot(dat)

There are many examples at ?plot.zoo and ?xyplot.zoo and
in the three zoo vignettes.

On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 1:49 PM,  <Kyle.Matoba at sf.frb.org>
wrote:
> List,
>
> I am using the 'tisPlot' function in Jeff Hallman's excellent
tis package
> and was hoping that someone could spare me from having to dig into the
> code of his 'tisPlot' function.  So far as I can tell, the
preferred
> method of controlling the plotting of the x-axis is using the
'xTickFreq'
> and 'xTickSkip' options.  Unfortunately, the where the data ends up
on the
> resultant plot is not invariant to this choice, as indicated in the
> documentation of the 'xTickFreq' option.  Has anyone adjusted the
> frequency of their x-axis label using this package before?  I imagine that
> there must be a better way of doing what I am trying to accomplish, but if
> not, does anyone have a suggestion on how to work around this without
> digging into the function itself?
>
> ## an example
>
> library(tis)
>
> strt <- ti(20000101, "monthly")
> dat  <- tis(runif(9*12 - 1), start=strt) # ends in 11/2008
>
> par(mfrow=c(2,1))
> tisPlot(dat, xTickFreq="monthly", xTickSkip=6) # graph ends in
11/2008,
> but looks to start some time in late 1999
> tisPlot(dat, xTickFreq="monthly", xTickSkip=12) # graph looks to
end
> around 3/2009
>
> ## end
>
> TIA,
>
> Kyle
>
> ___________________________________________
> Research Associate, Macroeconomics
> Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
>
>        [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>

Kyle.Matoba at sf.frb.org writes:
> List,
>
> I am using the 'tisPlot' function in Jeff Hallman's excellent
tis package
> and was hoping that someone could spare me from having to dig into the 
> code of his 'tisPlot' function.  So far as I can tell, the
preferred
> method of controlling the plotting of the x-axis is using the
'xTickFreq'
> and 'xTickSkip' options.  Unfortunately, the where the data ends up
on the
> resultant plot is not invariant to this choice, as indicated in the 
> documentation of the 'xTickFreq' option.  Has anyone adjusted the 
> frequency of their x-axis label using this package before?  I imagine that 
> there must be a better way of doing what I am trying to accomplish, but if 
> not, does anyone have a suggestion on how to work around this without 
> digging into the function itself?
>
> ## an example
>
> library(tis)
>
> strt <- ti(20000101, "monthly")
> dat  <- tis(runif(9*12 - 1), start=strt) # ends in 11/2008
>
> par(mfrow=c(2,1))
> tisPlot(dat, xTickFreq="monthly", xTickSkip=6) # graph ends in
11/2008,
> but looks to start some time in late 1999
> tisPlot(dat, xTickFreq="monthly", xTickSkip=12) # graph looks to
end
> around 3/2009
Try this:

tisPlot(dat, xTickFreq = "annual", xMinorTickFreq =
"monthly")


I don't understand what you mean by "where the data ends up on the
> resultant plot is not invariant to this choice, as indicated in the 
> documentation of the 'xTickFreq' option."  The documentation
for xTickFreq
> says:
xTickFreq: a string like the ones returned by 'tifName'. This argument
          and 'xTickSkip' jointly specify locations for labeled x axis
          ticks as follow: (i) find the 'ti''s of the given
frequency
          that correspond to 'xAxisMin' and 'xAxisMax', then
(ii)
          including those as endpoints, generate a sequence of every
          'xTickSkip''th 'ti' between them.

          Two special strings can also be given.  "none" means no
          labelled tick marks, while "auto" tries (not always
          successfully) to come up with reasonable tick locations
          automatically.  "auto" also overrides any
'xTickSkip'
          setting.

          The default is "auto". 

which does not indicate that your data points are moved.  At any rate, please
try my suggestion above, which gives a pretty nice axis for your time range.

Jeff