PieChart: Pie chart
In plotthis: High-Level Plotting Built Upon 'ggplot2' and Other Plotting Packages

PieChart

R Documentation

Pie chart

Description

Draws a pie chart illustrating the numerical proportion of each group relative to the whole. Each slice corresponds to a level of the x-axis variable and its angle is proportional to the y-axis value (or the observation count when y is omitted).

The function supports count aggregation (omit y to plot observation counts per x-category), slice labels via ggrepel::geom_label_repel(), clockwise or counter-clockwise slice ordering, faceting, and splitting into separate sub-plots via split_by.

Usage

PieChart(
  data,
  x,
  y = NULL,
  label = y,
  split_by = NULL,
  split_by_sep = "_",
  clockwise = TRUE,
  facet_by = NULL,
  facet_scales = "free_y",
  facet_ncol = NULL,
  facet_nrow = NULL,
  facet_byrow = TRUE,
  theme = "theme_this",
  theme_args = list(),
  palette = "Paired",
  palcolor = NULL,
  palreverse = FALSE,
  alpha = 1,
  aspect.ratio = 1,
  keep_na = FALSE,
  keep_empty = FALSE,
  legend.position = "right",
  legend.direction = "vertical",
  title = NULL,
  subtitle = NULL,
  xlab = NULL,
  ylab = NULL,
  combine = TRUE,
  nrow = NULL,
  ncol = NULL,
  byrow = TRUE,
  seed = 8525,
  axes = NULL,
  axis_titles = axes,
  guides = NULL,
  design = NULL,
  ...
)

Arguments

`data`	A data frame.
`x`	A character string specifying the column name for the x-axis (categories). Must be character or factor. Each unique value becomes a pie slice.
`y`	A character string specifying the numeric column for the y-axis. When `NULL` (default), the count of observations in each (`x`, `facet_by`) combination is used and stored as `.y`.
`label`	A character string specifying the column to use for slice labels. `NULL` (default) hides labels. When `TRUE`, the `y` values are used as labels. When `y = NULL`, use `".y"` to label with the computed counts.
`split_by`	The column(s) to split the data by and produce separate sub-plots. Multiple columns are concatenated with `split_by_sep`.
`split_by_sep`	A character string to separate concatenated `split_by` columns. Default `"_"`.
`clockwise`	A logical value. When `TRUE` (default), the pie slices are ordered clockwise starting from the top. When `FALSE`, slices are ordered counter-clockwise.
`facet_by`	A character string specifying the column name of the data frame to facet the plot. Otherwise, the data will be split by `split_by` and generate multiple plots and combine them into one using `patchwork::wrap_plots`
`facet_scales`	Whether to scale the axes of facets. Default is "fixed" Other options are "free", "free_x", "free_y". See `ggplot2::facet_wrap`
`facet_ncol`	A numeric value specifying the number of columns in the facet. When facet_by is a single column and facet_wrap is used.
`facet_nrow`	A numeric value specifying the number of rows in the facet. When facet_by is a single column and facet_wrap is used.
`facet_byrow`	A logical value indicating whether to fill the plots by row. Default is TRUE.
`theme`	A character string or a theme class (i.e. ggplot2::theme_classic) specifying the theme to use. Default is "theme_this".
`theme_args`	A list of arguments to pass to the theme function.
`palette`	A character string specifying the palette to use. A named list or vector can be used to specify the palettes for different `split_by` values.
`palcolor`	A character string specifying the color to use in the palette. A named list can be used to specify the colors for different `split_by` values. If some values are missing, the values from the palette will be used (palcolor will be NULL for those values).
`palreverse`	A logical value indicating whether to reverse the palette. Default is FALSE.
`alpha`	A numeric value specifying the transparency of the plot.
`aspect.ratio`	A numeric value specifying the aspect ratio of the plot.
`keep_na`	A logical value or a character to replace the NA values in the data. It can also take a named list to specify different behavior for different columns. If TRUE or NA, NA values will be replaced with NA. If FALSE, NA values will be removed from the data before plotting. If a character string is provided, NA values will be replaced with the provided string. If a named vector/list is provided, the names should be the column names to apply the behavior to, and the values should be one of TRUE, FALSE, or a character string. Without a named vector/list, the behavior applies to categorical/character columns used on the plot, for example, the `x`, `group_by`, `fill_by`, etc.
`keep_empty`	One of FALSE, TRUE and "level". It can also take a named list to specify different behavior for different columns. Without a named list, the behavior applies to the categorical/character columns used on the plot, for example, the `x`, `group_by`, `fill_by`, etc. `FALSE` (default): Drop empty factor levels from the data before plotting. `TRUE`: Keep empty factor levels and show them as a separate category in the plot. `"level"`: Keep empty factor levels, but do not show them in the plot. But they will be assigned colors from the palette to maintain consistency across multiple plots. Alias: `levels`
`legend.position`	A character string specifying the position of the legend. if `waiver()`, for single groups, the legend will be "none", otherwise "right".
`legend.direction`	A character string specifying the direction of the legend.
`title`	A character string specifying the title of the plot. A function can be used to generate the title based on the default title. This is useful when split_by is used and the title needs to be dynamic.
`subtitle`	A character string specifying the subtitle of the plot.
`xlab`	A character string specifying the x-axis label.
`ylab`	A character string specifying the y-axis label.
`combine`	Logical; when `TRUE` (default), returns a combined `patchwork` object. When `FALSE`, returns a named list of individual `ggplot` objects.
`ncol`, `nrow`	Integer number of columns / rows for the combined layout (passed to `wrap_plots`).
`byrow`	Logical; fill the combined layout by row. Default `TRUE` (passed to `wrap_plots`).
`seed`	A numeric seed for reproducibility. Passed to `validate_common_args()`.
`axes`	A character string specifying how axes should be treated across the combined layout (passed to `wrap_plots`).
`axis_titles`	A character string specifying how axis titles should be treated across the combined layout. Defaults to `axes`.
`guides`	A character string specifying how guides (legends) should be collected across panels. Default `"collect"` (passed to `combine_plots()`).
`design`	A custom layout design for the combined plot (passed to `combine_plots()`).
`...`	Additional arguments.

Value

A ggplot object, a patchwork object, or a named list of ggplot objects (when combine = FALSE), each with height and width attributes in inches.

split_by workflow

When split_by is provided:

validate_common_args() validates the seed and facet_by settings.
check_keep_na() and check_keep_empty() normalise the keep_na / keep_empty arguments for all columns (x, split_by, facet_by).
process_theme() resolves the theme function.
The x column is forced to factor; y is validated.
The split_by column is validated and its NA / empty levels are processed via process_keep_na_empty(). It is then removed from the per-column keep_na / keep_empty lists.
The data frame is split by split_by (preserving level order). If split_by is NULL, the data is wrapped in a single-element list with name "...".
Per-split palette, palcolor, legend.position, and legend.direction are resolved via check_palette(), check_palcolor(), and check_legend().
PieChartAtomic() is called for each split. If title is a function, it receives the split level name and can generate dynamic titles.
Results are combined via combine_plots() (when combine = TRUE) or returned as a named list.

Examples


data <- data.frame(
   x = factor(c("A", "B", "C", NA, "E", "F", "G", "H"), levels = LETTERS[1:8]),
   y = c(10, 8, 16, 4, 6, 12, 14, 2),
   group = factor(c("G1", "G1", NA, NA, "G3", "G3", "G4", "G4"),
       levels = c("G1", "G2", "G3", "G4")),
   facet = factor(c("F1", NA, "F3", "F4", "F1", NA, "F3", "F4"),
       levels = c("F1", "F2", "F3", "F4"))
)

# Basic pie chart
PieChart(data, x = "x", y = "y")

# Keep NA and empty levels
PieChart(data, x = "x", y = "y", keep_na = TRUE, keep_empty = TRUE)

# Counter-clockwise ordering
PieChart(data, x = "x", y = "y", clockwise = FALSE)
PieChart(data, x = "x", y = "y", clockwise = FALSE,
         keep_na = TRUE, keep_empty = TRUE)

# With slice labels
PieChart(data, x = "x", y = "y", label = "group")

# Faceting
PieChart(data, x = "x", y = "y", facet_by = "facet")
PieChart(data, x = "x", y = "y", facet_by = c("facet", "group"),
    keep_empty = "level")
PieChart(data, x = "x", y = "y", facet_by = c("facet", "group"),
    keep_empty = TRUE)

# Split into sub-plots
PieChart(data, x = "x", y = "y", split_by = "group")

# Per-split palettes
PieChart(data, x = "x", y = "y", split_by = "group",
         palette = list(G1 = "Reds", G2 = "Blues", G3 = "Greens", G4 = "Purp"))

# Y from count
PieChart(data, x = "group")

# Y from count with label
PieChart(data, x = "group", label = ".y")

plotthis documentation built on July 9, 2026, 5:07 p.m.