n.plot: Name Plot: Names or Numbers instead of Points in Plot

In sfsmisc: Utilities from 'Seminar fuer Statistik' ETH Zurich

Name Plot: Names or Numbers instead of Points in Plot

Description

A utility function which basically calls plot(*, type="n") and text. To have names or numbers instead of points in a plot is useful for identifaction, e.g., in a residual plot, see also TA.plot.

Usage

n.plot(x, y = NULL, nam = NULL, abbr = n >= 20 || max(nchar(nam))>=8,
       type = "n", xlab = NULL, ylab = NULL, log = "",
       cex = par("cex"), col = par("col"), pt.col = par("col"), ...)

Arguments

x, y	coordinates at which to plot. If y is missing, x is used for both, if it's a data.frame, list, 2-column matrix etc – via xy.coords; formula do not work.
nam	the labels to plot at each (x,y). Per default, these taken from the data x and y; case numbers 1:n are taken if no names are available.
abbr	logical indicating if the nam labels should be abbreviated – with a sensible default.
type	passed to plot.default,a string denoting the type of the initial plot() call; the default draws nothing but the axes, etc; type = "l" maybe useful occasionally.
xlab, ylab	labels for the x- and y- axis, the latter being empty by default.
log	character specifying if log scaled axes should be used, see plot.default.
cex	plotting character expansion, see par.
col	color to use for text().
pt.col	color to use for plot() if type is set different to "n".
...	further arguments to be passed to the plot call.

Value

invisibly, a character vector with the labels used.

Author(s)

Martin Maechler, since 1992

See Also

plot.default, text.

Examples

 n.plot(1:20, cumsum(rnorm(20)))
 data(cars)
 with(cars, n.plot(speed, dist, cex = 0.8, col = "forest green"))

## visualize periodicity of  exp(<complex>)   {pass args to plot.default() via `...`}
cpxN <- function(r,i) setNames(complex(real=r, imaginary=i), i)
n.plot(exp(cpxN(2, 0:32)), type = "l", pt.col = "gray", asp = 1,
       col = adjustcolor(rainbow(33), offset = rep(-1/4, 4)),
       panel.first = abline(h=0, v=0, lty=3, col="gray30"))
symbols(0,0, circles = exp(2), inches=FALSE, fg = adjustcolor(2, 1/3), lwd=3, add=TRUE)

sfsmisc documentation built on Nov. 21, 2025, 9:06 a.m.