R: Generic X-Y Plotting

plot {base}

R Documentation

Generic X-Y Plotting

Description

Generic function for plotting of R objects. For more details about the graphical parameter arguments, see par.

Usage

plot(x, ...)
plot(x, y, xlim=range(x), ylim=range(y), type="p",
        main, xlab, ylab, ...)
plot(y ~ x, ...)

Arguments

x

the coordinates of points in the plot. Alternatively, a single plotting structure or any R object with a plot method can be provided.

y

the y coordinates of points in the plot, optional if x is an appropriate structure.

xlim, ylim

the ranges to be encompassed by the x and y axes.

type

what type of plot should be drawn. Possible types are

"p" for points,
"l" for lines,
"b" for both,
"o" for both “overplotted”,
"h" for “histogram” like vertical lines,
"s" for steps,
"S" for other steps,
"n" for no plotting.

main

an overall title for the plot.

xlab

a title for the x axis.

ylab

a title for the y axis.

...

graphical parameters can be given as arguments to plot.

Details

For simple scatter plots, plot.default will be used. However, there are plot methods for many R objects, including functions, data.frames, density objects, etc. Use methods(plot) and the documentation for these.

Examples

data(cars)
plot(cars)
lines(lowess(cars))

plot(sin, -pi, 2*pi)

## Discrete Distribution Plot:
plot(table(rpois(100,5)), type = "h", col = "red", lwd=10,
     main="rpois(100,lambda=5)")