Multiple lines on a line plot in R [duplicate] - r

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Plotting two variables as lines using ggplot2 on the same graph
(5 answers)
Closed 4 years ago.
I'm trying to create a line plot in R, showing lines for different places over time.
My data is in a table with Year in the first column, the places England, Scotland, Wales, NI as separate columns:
Year England Scotland Wales NI
1 2006/07 NA 411 188 111
2 2007/08 NA 415 193 112
3 2008/09 NA 424 194 114
4 2009/10 NA 429 194 115
5 2010/11 NA 428 199 116
6 2011/12 NA 428 200 116
7 2012/13 NA 425 199 117
8 2013/14 NA 427 202 117
9 2014/15 NA 431 200 121
10 2015/16 3556 432 199 126
11 2016/17 3436 431 200 129
12 2017/18 3467 NA NA NA
I'm using ggplot, and can get a lineplot for any of the places, but I'm having difficulty getting lines for all the places on the same plot.
It seems like this might work if I had the places in a column as well (instead of across the top), as then I could set y in the code below to be that column, as opposed to the column that is a specific place. But that seems a bit convoluted and as I have lots of data in the existing format, I'm hoping there's either a way to do this with the format I have or a quick way of transforming it.
ggplot(data=mysheets$sheet1, aes(x=Year, y=England, group=1)) +
geom_line()+
geom_point()
From what I can tell, I'll need to reshape my data (into long form?) but I haven't found a way to do that where I don't have a column for places (i.e., I have a column for each place but the table doesn't have a way of saying these are all places and the same kind of thing).
I've also tried transposing my data, so the places are down the side and the years are along the top, but R still has its own headers for the columns - I guess another option might be if it was possible to have the years as headers and have that recognised by R?

Answer 1

As you said, you have to convert to long format to make the most out of ggplot2.
library(ggplot2)
library(dplyr)
mydata_raw <- read.table(
text = "
Year England Scotland Wales NI
1 2006/07 NA 411 188 111
2 2007/08 NA 415 193 112
3 2008/09 NA 424 194 114
4 2009/10 NA 429 194 115
5 2010/11 NA 428 199 116
6 2011/12 NA 428 200 116
7 2012/13 NA 425 199 117
8 2013/14 NA 427 202 117
9 2014/15 NA 431 200 121
10 2015/16 3556 432 199 126
11 2016/17 3436 431 200 129
12 2017/18 3467 NA NA NA"
)
# long format
mydata <- mydata_raw %>%
tidyr::gather(country, value, England:NI) %>%
dplyr::mutate(Year = as.numeric(substring(Year, 1, 4))) # convert to numeric date
ggplot(mydata, aes(x = Year, y = value, color = country)) +
geom_line() +
geom_point()