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Categorical Distribution Plot

Source: R/plotCatDist.R
plotCatDist.Rd

Visualizes the distribution of a categorical variable using horizontal bar plots of absolute and relative frequencies. Optionally, cumulative proportions (ECDF-style) can be displayed.

Usage

plotCatDist(
  x,
  main = NULL,
  type = c("both", "freq", "perc"),
  ecdf = FALSE,
  maxCats = NULL,
  maxLabLen = 25,
  col = "grey80",
  border = FALSE,
  stamp = .useTheme,
  ...
)

Arguments

x

a factor or character vector, a one-dimensional table of counts, or a numeric vector of precomputed frequencies. Unnamed numeric frequency vectors are labelled by their positions.

main

plot title.

type

character; one of "both", "freq", "perc". Controls whether absolute frequencies, relative frequencies, or both are displayed.

ecdf

logical; if TRUE, cumulative proportions are shown instead of simple relative frequencies.

maxCats

optional maximum number of categories to display (truncates if exceeded).

maxLabLen

integer; maximum length of category labels before truncation.

col

fill color for bars.

border

logical; draw borders around bars.

stamp

controls the corner stamp. .useTheme (default) resolves to getTheme()$stamp. TRUE/FALSE/ NULL, a string, or a named list for stamp().

...

further graphical parameters passed to par().

Value

Invisibly returns a list with frequencies and proportions.

Details

The function produces horizontal bar plots:

  • Absolute frequencies (counts)

  • Relative frequencies (percentages) or cumulative proportions

If type = "both", both views are shown side by side.

Long labels are truncated, and large category sets can be limited via maxCats.

Raw categorical data and their pre-tabulated form are treated identically. When categories are truncated via maxCats, proportions remain based on the total frequency before truncation.

See also

Other plot.univariate: plotArea(), plotBar(), plotBox(), plotDens(), plotDensBox(), plotDot(), plotECDF(), plotFreqDist(), plotLines(), plotQQ(), plotViolin()

Examples

# Basic usage
x <- factor(sample(letters[1:5], 100, TRUE))
plotCatDist(x)

plotCatDist(table(x))


# Only proportions
plotCatDist(x, type = "perc")


# With cumulative distribution
plotCatDist(x, ecdf = TRUE)


# Many categories (truncation)
x2 <- factor(sample(letters, 200, TRUE))
plotCatDist(x2, maxCats = 10)