This help topic is for R version 0.60. For the current version of R, try https://stat.ethz.ch/R-manual/R-patched/library/base/html/barplot.html
barplot {base}R Documentation

Bar Plots

Usage

barplot(height, width = 1, space = NULL, names.arg = NULL,
        legend.text = NULL, beside = FALSE, horiz = FALSE,
        col = heat.colors(NR), border = par("fg"), main = NULL,
        xlab = NULL, ylab = NULL, xlim = NULL, ylim = NULL,
        axes = TRUE, ...)

Arguments

height

either a vector or matrix of values describing the bars which make up the plot. If height is a vector, the plot consists of a sequence of rectangular bars with heights given by the values in the vector. If height is a matrix and beside is FALSE then each bar of the plot corresponds to a column of height, with the values in the column giving the heights of stacked “sub-bars” making up the bar. If height is a matrix and beside is TRUE, then the values in each column are juxtaposed rather than stacked.

width

optional vector of bar widths.

space

the amount of space (as a fraction of the average bar width) left before each bar. May be given as a single number or one number per bar. If height is a matrix and beside is TRUE, space may be specified by two numbers, where the first is the space between bars in the same group, and the second the space between the groups. If not given explicitly, it defaults to c(0,1) if height is a matrix and beside is TRUE, and to 0.2 otherwise.

names.arg

a vector of names to be plotted below each bar or group of bars. If this argument is omitted, then the names are taken from the names attribute of height if this is a vector, or the column names of height if this is a matrix.

legend.text

a vector of text used to construct a legend for the plot. This is only useful when height is a matrix. In that case the legend labels should correspond to the rows of height.

beside

a logical value. If FALSE, the columns of height are portrayed as stacked bars, and if TRUE the columns are portrayed as juxtaposed bars.

horiz

a logical value. If FALSE, the bars are drawn vertically with the first bar to the left. If TRUE, the bars are drwan horizontally with the first at the bottom.

col

a vector of colors for the bars or bar components.

border

the color to be used for the border of the bars.

main

an overall title for the plot.

xlab

a label for the x axis.

ylab

a label for the y axis.

xlim

limits for the x axis.

ylim

limits for the y axis.

axes

logical. If TRUE, a vertical axis is drawn.

...

further arguments are passed to title(.).

Value

A numeric vector, giving the coordinates of the bar midpoints drawn, useful for adding to the graph.

See Also

dotplot, hist.

Examples

data(deaths)
mp <- barplot(deaths) # default
tot <- apply(deaths,2,sum); text(mp, tot + 3, format(tot))
barplot(deaths, beside = TRUE,
        col = c("lightblue", "mistyrose", "lightcyan",
                "lavender", "cornsilk"),
        legend = rownames(deaths), ylim = c(0, 100))
title(main = "Death Rates in Virginia", font.main = 4)

barplot(t(deaths)[, 5:1], beside = TRUE,
        col = c("lightblue", "mistyrose",
                "lightcyan", "lavender"),
        legend = colnames(deaths), ylim = c(0,80),
        main = "Death Rates in Virginia", font.main = 4)
        ## instead of title(.)
[Package base version 0.60 ]