Ordering in r plotly barchart

Question

Why do I get the different order in plotly bar chart than I defined in x and y variables.

E.g.

library(plotly)

plot_ly(
  x = c("giraffes", "orangutans", "monkeys"),
  y = c(20, 14, 23),
  name = "SF Zoo",
  type = "bar"
)

I need bar chart where I see bars in the same order as x variable (categorical) is defined. Is there any trick for that?

mtoto · Answer 1 · 2016-10-20T09:36:25.937

49

Plotly will order your axes by the order that is present in the data supplied. In case of character vectors alphabetically; in case of factors by the order of levels. To override this behaviour, you need to define categoryorder and categoryarray for the xaxis inside layout:

library(plotly)
xform <- list(categoryorder = "array",
              categoryarray = c("giraffes", 
                                "orangutans", 
                                "monkeys"))

plot_ly(
 x = c("giraffes", "orangutans", "monkeys"),
 y = c(20, 14, 23),
 name = "SF Zoo",
 type = "bar") %>% 
 layout(xaxis = xform)

edited Oct 20 '16 at 09:36

answered Oct 20 '16 at 08:53

mtoto

23,919
4
58
71

6

This answer is more flexible than ordering based on the factors :) – pari Jan 02 '18 at 16:58
saved my day! More flexible than factors for sure! – Gayatri Mar 26 '20 at 21:57

score 34 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 20 '16 at 08:56

34

plotly does it in alphabetical order. If you want to change it, just try to change levels of factor. This would be possible if you give your data in the form of data.frame like here:

library(plotly)

table <- data.frame(x = c("giraffes", "orangutans", "monkeys"),
                    y = c(20, 14, 23))
table$x <- factor(table$x, levels = c("giraffes", "orangutans", "monkeys"))

plot_ly(
    data=table,
    x = ~x,
    y = ~y,
    name = "SF Zoo",
    type = "bar"
)

answered Oct 20 '16 at 08:56

Marta

3,032
3
17
34

10

If you have a larger dataset, that is allready in the needed order you can use `table$x <- factor(table$x, levels = c(as.character(table$x)))` no need to type in every word. – DanielS Aug 03 '18 at 07:51

score 11 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 10 '20 at 06:35

11

You can also use reorder if you want to order based on a second variable:

library(plotly)
 x <- c("giraffes", "orangutans", "monkeys")
 y <- c(20, 14, 23)

plot_ly(
  x = ~reorder(x,y),
  y = ~y,
  name = "SF Zoo",
  type = "bar"
  )

answered Mar 10 '20 at 06:35

Joost

123
1
6

Ordering in r plotly barchart

3 Answers3

Linked

Related