R help - Jan 2011 - using "plot" with time series object - "axes = FALSE" option does not appear to work

Dear R-help,

I am attempting to plot data using standard R plot utilities.  The
data was retrieved from FRED (St. Louis Federal Reserve) using the
package quantmod.  My question is NOT about quantmod.  While I
retrieve data using quantmod, I am not using its charting utility.  I
have been having success using the standard R "plot" utilities to this
point with this type of data.

Eventually I want to put two series on the same plot but with the
y-axis for one series on the right side, and also inverted (min at the
top, max at the bottom).  I believe that I see how to do this by using
par(new = TRUE) with a second plot statement with "axes = FALSE",
followed by the command "axis(side = 4, ylim = c(max(seriesname),
min(seriesname))".

Here is what I believe should be a smaller reproducible example of my issue:

#-----------------------------------------------------------------

library(quantmod)

getSymbols('PCECTPI', src='FRED')
is.xts(PCECTPI)      # check the type of object - response is 'TRUE'

plot(PCECTPI)  # This works fine.

plot(PCECTPI, axes = FALSE)  # This works in that it gives me a plot,
but I get the axes regardless of the use of "axes = FALSE".

#-----------------------------------------------------------------

I did find that using par(yaxt = "n") seems to work to suppress the
y-axis.  But it seems to me that the "axes = FALSE" command should
also work, and I believe that it would be easier to use in the larger
context of my goal.


I have spent time with the R help pages and Nabble searches of the R
help archives but I still seem to be missing something.

Does the "axes = FALSE" option not work when using plot with this type
of data object?
Is there some other fundamental thing that I have overlooked?
Or should this work?

My apologies if the answer is obvious and I've just missed it.  Thank
you in advance for any help that can be provided.

Cliff Long
gnolffilc at gmail.com


####################################################################

My system:
HP Pavilion
Windows 7
The computer/OS is 64-bit.  I am running the precompiled 32-bit
version of R (per sessionInfo).
Thus far, everything seems to have been working as expected.

> sessionInfo()
R version 2.12.1 (2010-12-16)
Platform: i386-pc-mingw32/i386 (32-bit)

locale:
[1] LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252
[2] LC_CTYPE=English_United States.1252
[3] LC_MONETARY=English_United States.1252
[4] LC_NUMERIC=C
[5] LC_TIME=English_United States.1252

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base

other attached packages:
[1] quantmod_0.3-15 TTR_0.20-2      xts_0.7-5       zoo_1.6-4
[5] Defaults_1.1-1

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] grid_2.12.1     lattice_0.19-13 tools_2.12.1

> Sys.getlocale()
[1] "LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252;LC_CTYPE=English_United
States.1252;LC_MONETARY=English_United
States.1252;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=English_United States.1252"

> Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2011 00:03:15 -0600
> From: gnolffilc at gmail.com
> To: r-help at r-project.org
> Subject: [R] using "plot" with time series object - "axes =
FALSE" option does not appear to work
>
> Dear R-help,
>
> I am attempting to plot data using standard R plot utilities. The
> data was retrieved from FRED (St. Louis Federal Reserve) using the
> package quantmod. My question is NOT about quantmod. While I
> retrieve data using quantmod, I am not using its charting utility. I
[...]
>
> Here is what I believe should be a smaller reproducible example of my
issue:
>
> #-----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> library(quantmod)
>
> getSymbols('PCECTPI', src='FRED')
> is.xts(PCECTPI) # check the type of object - response is 'TRUE'
>
> plot(PCECTPI) # This works fine.
>
I just tried the example and got a graph of something, presumably using
data downloaded from the data provider FRED. I have a lot of bash scripts
to download data from various FRB web pages but I seem to recall these are
based on scraping html and maybe their ftp site ( I'm too lazy to look but
I do remember they had csv data files for download). Often with sites like this,
there is no API or even stable web pages from which to scrape data. Generally
how stable are the R data download things when no agreement with data provider
is in place? I'm impressed that someone is willing to maintain such a
helpful
facility as this is the most annoying kinds of stuff to write but also note
that sometimes agencies do solicit public input on related topics
and it may be helpful for R users to response and comment on the importance
of computer readable data.

I guess you should specify x and y variables:
   plot(x=PCECTPI$var1, y=PCECTPI$var2, axes = FALSE)

Dear R-help,

I am told by Professor Ripley that my question (quote) wastes the time
of (and has insulted on-list) the R developers by falsely claiming
there are problems with their code.  I am writing, as he instructed,
to publicly apologize to the R developers for any slight that my
question might have generated.

When posing my question, I genuinely thought that by invoking "plot"
that it was a Base R graphics package that I was using, and not that
offered by Mr. Ryan.

As I am told that I owe an apology, I would like to do as I was
instructed and publicly apologize on the list to the R developers, but
not for any malicious intent, but rather for my lack of expertise and
any unintentional insult that resulted.  (My apologies also to Mr.
Ryan for my ignorance.)

Signed "bruised, but maybe a little less ignorant about R".

Cliff Long
gnolffilc at gmail.com




On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 12:03 AM, Clifford Long <gnolffilc at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Dear R-help,
>
> I am attempting to plot data using standard R plot utilities. ?The
> data was retrieved from FRED (St. Louis Federal Reserve) using the
> package quantmod. ?My question is NOT about quantmod. ?While I
> retrieve data using quantmod, I am not using its charting utility. ?I
> have been having success using the standard R "plot" utilities to
this
> point with this type of data.
>
> Eventually I want to put two series on the same plot but with the
> y-axis for one series on the right side, and also inverted (min at the
> top, max at the bottom). ?I believe that I see how to do this by using
> par(new = TRUE) with a second plot statement with "axes = FALSE",
> followed by the command "axis(side = 4, ylim = c(max(seriesname),
> min(seriesname))".
>
> Here is what I believe should be a smaller reproducible example of my
issue:
>
> #-----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> library(quantmod)
>
> getSymbols('PCECTPI', src='FRED')
> is.xts(PCECTPI) ? ? ?# check the type of object - response is
'TRUE'
>
> plot(PCECTPI) ?# This works fine.
>
> plot(PCECTPI, axes = FALSE) ?# This works in that it gives me a plot,
> but I get the axes regardless of the use of "axes = FALSE".
>
> #-----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I did find that using par(yaxt = "n") seems to work to suppress
the
> y-axis. ?But it seems to me that the "axes = FALSE" command
should
> also work, and I believe that it would be easier to use in the larger
> context of my goal.
>
>
> I have spent time with the R help pages and Nabble searches of the R
> help archives but I still seem to be missing something.
>
> Does the "axes = FALSE" option not work when using plot with this
type
> of data object?
> Is there some other fundamental thing that I have overlooked?
> Or should this work?
>
> My apologies if the answer is obvious and I've just missed it. ?Thank
> you in advance for any help that can be provided.
>
> Cliff Long
> gnolffilc at gmail.com
>
>
> ####################################################################
>
> My system:
> HP Pavilion
> Windows 7
> The computer/OS is 64-bit. ?I am running the precompiled 32-bit
> version of R (per sessionInfo).
> Thus far, everything seems to have been working as expected.
>
>
>> sessionInfo()
> R version 2.12.1 (2010-12-16)
> Platform: i386-pc-mingw32/i386 (32-bit)
>
> locale:
> [1] LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252
> [2] LC_CTYPE=English_United States.1252
> [3] LC_MONETARY=English_United States.1252
> [4] LC_NUMERIC=C
> [5] LC_TIME=English_United States.1252
>
> attached base packages:
> [1] stats ? ? graphics ?grDevices utils ? ? datasets ?methods ? base
>
> other attached packages:
> [1] quantmod_0.3-15 TTR_0.20-2 ? ? ?xts_0.7-5 ? ? ? zoo_1.6-4
> [5] Defaults_1.1-1
>
> loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
> [1] grid_2.12.1 ? ? lattice_0.19-13 tools_2.12.1
>
>
>> Sys.getlocale()
> [1] "LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252;LC_CTYPE=English_United
> States.1252;LC_MONETARY=English_United
> States.1252;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=English_United States.1252"
>

Clifford Long <gnolffilc <at> gmail.com> writes:
> 
> Dear R-help,
> 
> I am told by Professor Ripley that my question (quote) wastes the time
> of (and has insulted on-list) the R developers by falsely claiming
> there are problems with their code.  I am writing, as he instructed,
> to publicly apologize to the R developers for any slight that my
> question might have generated.
> 
> When posing my question, I genuinely thought that by invoking
"plot"
> that it was a Base R graphics package that I was using, and not that
> offered by Mr. Ryan.
> 
> As I am told that I owe an apology, I would like to do as I was
> instructed and publicly apologize on the list to the R developers, but
> not for any malicious intent, but rather for my lack of expertise and
> any unintentional insult that resulted.  (My apologies also to Mr.
> Ryan for my ignorance.)
> 
Your post did not look insulting to me, just mildly (and understandably)
misinformed.

 It looks to me like this is a bug in plot.xts, which has the code

  dots <- list(...)
    if ("axes" %in% names(dots)) {
        if (!dots$axes) 
            axes <- FALSE
    }
    else axes <- TRUE

  This would make sense if axes were *not* in the explicit list
of arguments to the function, and the default was supposed to be
TRUE.  Because axes *is* in the explicit list of arguments, this
overrides it.  I would contact the maintainer [maintainer("xts")] and
ask if this is a bug.

  cheers
    Ben Bolker