Using literal month names with year in ramcharts - r

Question

Here is my code to generate barplot using rAmChart,
library(rAmCharts)
amBarplot(x = "month", y = "value", data = dataset,
dataDateFormat = "MM/YYYY", minPeriod = "MM",
show_values = FALSE, labelRotation = -90, depth = 0.1)
However, is there a way to use month names & year in my x axis? I am trying to use MMM-YY formats.
Sample dataset,
structure(list(value = c(11544, 9588, 9411, 10365, 11154, 12688
), month = c("05/2012", "06/2012", "07/2012", "08/2012", "09/2012",
"10/2012")), .Names = c("value", "month"), row.names = c(NA,
6L), class = "data.frame")
Thanks.

Answer 1

It appears that rAmCharts doesn't expose AmCharts' dateFormats setting in the categoryAxis, so you have to access it through the init event and create your own dateFormats array with a modified format string for the MM period. I'm not very experienced with R, but here's how I managed to make it work using R 3.4.2 and rAmCharts 2.1.5
chart <- amBarplot( ... settings omitted ... )
addListener(.Object = chart,
name = 'init',
expression = paste(
"function(e) {",
"e.chart.categoryAxis.dateFormats = ",
'[{"period":"fff","format":"JJ:NN:SS"},{"period":"ss","format":"JJ:NN:SS"},',
'{"period":"mm","format":"JJ:NN"},{"period":"hh","format":"JJ:NN"},{"period":"DD","format":"MMM DD"},',
'{"period":"WW","format":"MMM DD"},',
'{"period":"MM","format":"MMM-YY"},', # "add YY to default MM format
'{"period":"YYYY","format":"YYYY"}]; ',
'e.chart.validateData();',
"}")
)

Answer 2

Here is a different solution:
library(rAmCharts)
dataset <- structure(list(value = c(11544, 9588, 9411, 10365, 11154, 12688
), month = c("05/2012", "06/2012", "07/2012", "08/2012", "09/2012",
"10/2012")), .Names = c("value", "month"), row.names = c(NA,
6L), class = "data.frame")
dataset$month <- as.character(
format(
as.Date(paste0("01/",dataset$month), "%d/%m/%Y"),
"%B %Y"))
amBarplot(x = "month", y = "value", data = dataset,
show_values = FALSE, labelRotation = -90, depth = 0.1)