scale_mixtime: Position scales for mixtime data

In ggtime: Grammar of Graphics and Plot Helpers for Time Series Visualization

Position scales for mixtime data

Description

These are the default scales for mixtime vectors, responsible for mapping time points to aesthetics along with identifying break points and labels for the axes and guides. To override the scales behaviour manually, use ⁠scale_*_mixtime⁠. The primary purpose of these scales is to scale time points across multiple granularities onto a common time scale. This is achieved by identifying and coercing all time points to the finest chronon that all time points can be represented in. This common time chronon is automatically identified, but can be manually specified using the time_chronon argument.

Usage

scale_x_mixtime(
  name = waiver(),
  breaks = waiver(),
  time_breaks = waiver(),
  minor_breaks = waiver(),
  time_minor_breaks = waiver(),
  labels = waiver(),
  time_labels = waiver(),
  time_chronon = waiver(),
  align_discrete = aes_nudge(),
  transform = "identity",
  limits = NULL,
  expand = waiver(),
  oob = scales::censor,
  guide = waiver(),
  position = "bottom",
  sec.axis = waiver()
)

scale_y_mixtime(
  name = waiver(),
  breaks = waiver(),
  time_breaks = waiver(),
  minor_breaks = waiver(),
  time_minor_breaks = waiver(),
  labels = waiver(),
  time_labels = waiver(),
  time_chronon = waiver(),
  align_discrete = aes_nudge(),
  transform = "identity",
  limits = NULL,
  expand = waiver(),
  oob = scales::censor,
  guide = waiver(),
  position = "left",
  sec.axis = waiver()
)

Arguments

name	The name of the scale. Used as the axis or legend title. If waiver(), the default, the name of the scale is taken from the first mapping used for that aesthetic. If NULL, the legend title will be omitted.
breaks	One of: NULL for no breaks waiver() for the breaks specified by date_breaks A Date/POSIXct vector giving positions of breaks A function that takes the limits as input and returns breaks as output
time_breaks	A duration giving the distance between breaks, such as mixtime::weeks(2L) or mixtime::years(10L). If both breaks and time_breaks are specified, time_breaks wins.
minor_breaks	One of: NULL for no breaks waiver() for the breaks specified by date_minor_breaks A Date/POSIXct vector giving positions of minor breaks A function that takes the limits as input and returns minor breaks as output
time_minor_breaks	A duration giving the distance between minor breaks, such as mixtime::weeks(2L) or mixtime::years(10L). If both minor_breaks and time_minor_breaks are specified, time_minor_breaks wins.
labels	One of the options below. Please note that when labels is a vector, it is highly recommended to also set the breaks argument as a vector to protect against unintended mismatches. NULL for no labels waiver() for the default labels computed by the transformation object A character vector giving labels (must be same length as breaks) An expression vector (must be the same length as breaks). See ?plotmath for details. A function that takes the breaks as input and returns labels as output. Also accepts rlang lambda function notation.
time_labels	A mixtime format string to format the labels, as described in vignette("time-format-strings", package = "mixtime").
time_chronon	A time granule that defines the common chronon to use for mixed granularity (e.g. mixtime::tu_day(1L)). The default automatically selects it as the finest chronon that all time points can be represented in.
align_discrete	Either a single number between 0 and 1, or a aes_nudge() object, defining how to align coarser granularities onto the common time scale. If a single number is supplied, it is used for all positional aesthetics: 0 means start alignment, 1 means end alignment, and 0.5 means center alignment (the default). To specify different offsets for different positional aesthetics (e.g. x, xmin, xend, y, ymin, ...), pass a aes_nudge() call, for example: 'align_discrete = aes_nudge(center = 0.5, left = 0.25, right = 0.75)“ The center, left, and right arguments apply to the semantically equivalent positional aesthetics (e.g. left applies to xstart, xmin, and xlower).
transform	A transformation applied to the time scale, after time points have been mapped onto the common time scale. Given as either a ⁠<transform>⁠ object or the name of one. Defaults to "identity", applying no further transformation.
limits	One of: NULL to use the default scale range A numeric vector of length two providing limits of the scale. Use NA to refer to the existing minimum or maximum A function that accepts the existing (automatic) limits and returns new limits. Also accepts rlang lambda function notation. Note that setting limits on positional scales will remove data outside of the limits. If the purpose is to zoom, use the limit argument in the coordinate system (see coord_cartesian()).
expand	For position scales, a vector of range expansion constants used to add some padding around the data to ensure that they are placed some distance away from the axes. Use the convenience function expansion() to generate the values for the expand argument. The defaults are to expand the scale by 5% on each side for continuous variables, and by 0.6 units on each side for discrete variables.
oob	One of: Function that handles limits outside of the scale limits (out of bounds). Also accepts rlang lambda function notation. The default (scales::censor()) replaces out of bounds values with NA. scales::squish() for squishing out of bounds values into range. scales::squish_infinite() for squishing infinite values into range.
guide	A function used to create a guide or its name. See guides() for more information.
position	For position scales, The position of the axis. left or right for y axes, top or bottom for x axes.
sec.axis	sec_axis() is used to specify a secondary axis.

Practical usage

When using mixtime vectors to represent time variables in ggplot2, these scales are automatically applied. In most cases, the default behaviour will be sufficient for scaling time points into plot aesthetics. These scales can be used to manually adjust the scaling behaviour, such as adjusting the breaks and labels or using a different common time scale.

Similarly to the temporal scales in ggplot2 (ggplot2::scale_x_date() and ggplot2::scale_x_datetime()), these scales can adjust the breaks and labels using duration-based intervals and time formatting. These time aware options are prefixed with time_ (e.g. time_breaks and time_labels), and take precedence over the non-time aware options (e.g. breaks and labels). The scale's breaks are specified with mixtime::duration() objects (e.g. time_breaks = mixtime::months(1L)) or a time granule.

Labels are specified with mixtime format strings, which describe a time point as glue-style {} placeholders holding the granules to show. Since the granules come from a calendar, this works across calendars rather than only Gregorian ones: time_labels = "{cyc(month, year, label = TRUE, abbreviate = TRUE)} {lin(year)}" gives "Jan 2020". See vignette("time-format-strings", package = "mixtime") for the full syntax.

A core feature of these scales is the ability to handle time from multiple timezones, granularities, and calendars. This is achieved by mapping all time points to a common time scale, which is automatically identifying the finest compatible chronon that can represent the input data. This allows time points across different granularities (e.g. base::POSIXt, base::Date, and mixtime::yearmonth) to be plotted together on a common time scale. In this case the finest chronon is 1 second (from base::POSIXt), so all time points are mapped to a 1 second chronon for plotting. Mapping day and month chronons to seconds introduces indeterminancy - which second should be used to represent a day or month? This is resolved using the align_discrete argument, which defaults to center alignment. This means that a day is mapped to noon, and a month is mapped to the middle of the month.

Further details about time specific scale options are described in the following sections.

Granularity alignment

Visualising mixed granularity time data introduces indeterminacy in the mapping of less precise time points onto a common time scale. For example, plotting monthly and daily data together raises the question of where to place the monthly points relative to the daily points. By default, mixtime uses center alignment, mapping the monthly points to the middle of the month. This is controlled using the align_discrete argument, which accepts a value between 0 (start alignment) and 1 (end alignment) and defaults to 0.5.

The common time scale that defines how all granularities are mapped is automatically identified based on the input data. This is achieved by finding the finest chronon that all time points can be represented in. For example, if the data contains both monthly and daily time points, the common time scale will be daily, with the monthly points aligned according to the align_discrete argument. If multiple time zones are present, the common time zone will default to UTC. The common time scale can be manually specified using the time_chronon argument, which accepts a mixtime::time_unit.

Examples

library(ggplot2)
library(dplyr)
uad_month <- tibble(
  time = mixtime::yearmonth("1973 Jan") + 0:71,
  value = USAccDeaths
)
uad_year <- uad_month %>%
  group_by(time = mixtime::year(time)) %>%
  summarise(value = mean(value), .groups = "drop")

bind_rows(
  month = uad_month,
  year = uad_year,
  .id = "grain"
) %>%
  ggplot(aes(time, value, color = grain)) +
  geom_line() +
  scale_x_mixtime()

ggtime documentation built on Sept. 1, 2026, 5:09 p.m.