factor not factorizing x axis labels for plotly

Question

I have a dataframe imported from excel. one of the column is of the format :

dates
-------
Oct-17
Nov-17
Dec-17
Jan-18
Feb-18
Mar-18
Apr-18
May-18
Jun-18
Jul-18
Aug-18

All other columns are just numbers

When I plot it using plotly (line chart), I am getting my x axis in alphabetical order. I tried factor.But it is not working.

 data_ = read_excel(path="Sample.xlsx",sheet = 'sheet1')
  data = as.data.frame(data_)
 data$dates <- factor(data$dates, levels = data$dates)

What has to be done? Finally I need x axis labelled with months in this format Oct-18,Nov-18

plot code :

pred <- plot_ly(data_, x = ~dates, y = ~exp, name = 'Exp', type = 'scatter', mode = 'lines',
               line = list(color = 'rgb(205, 12, 24)', width = 4)) %>%
    add_trace(y = ~acc, name = 'Accumulated', line = list(color = 'rgb(22, 96, 167)', width = 4)) %>%
    add_trace(y = ~sts, name = 'Contract', line = list(color = 'rgb(205, 12, 24)', width = 4, dash = 'dash')) %>%
    add_trace(y = ~stat, name = 'Status ', line = list(color = 'rgb(22, 96, 167)', width = 4, dash = 'dash')) %>%
    layout(title = "Trend",
           xaxis = list(title = "Months"),
           yaxis = list (title = "")"))

feebarscevicius · Accepted Answer · 2018-11-06T11:42:19.893

4

If you pass the argument ordered = TRUE inside the factor() function, the order of your levels will be the order they appear when you print data$dates. This is also the order they will appear in the plot. The default behaviour if you don't set ordered = TRUE is to arrange character factors by alphabetical order.

EDIT

To programatically get the dates column in the right order, you may try the following code (it depends on dplyr and stringr packages):

levels <- data %>%
  distinct(dates) %>% 
  rowwise() %>% 
  mutate(
    year = stringr::str_split(dates, "-", simplify = TRUE)[2],
    month = stringr::str_split(dates, "-", simplify = TRUE)[1], 
    month = match(month, month.abb)
    ) %>% 
  arrange(year, month) %>% 
  pull(dates)

Now you just pass this levels vector to the levels argument inside factor()

edited Nov 06 '18 at 11:42

answered Nov 06 '18 at 10:24

feebarscevicius

584
3
7

`data$dates <- factor(data$dates, levels = data$dates, ordered =TRUE)` This is not making any change. I am still getting it sorted in alphabetical order – qwww Nov 06 '18 at 10:44
It's difficult to figure out what's happening without a reproducible example, but the problem may be that you're passing the whole `dates` column to `levels`. It should work if you pass a vector with the levels in the order you want (eg: `levels = c("Oct-17", "Nov-17", ...**other dates in order**, "Aug-18")`). – feebarscevicius Nov 06 '18 at 10:57
but this is dynamic.. new month will be added each month – qwww Nov 06 '18 at 10:58
`[1] "Dec-17" "Jan-18" "Feb-18" "Mar-18" "Apr-18" "May-18" "Jun-18" "Jul-18" [9] "Aug-18" NA NA NA NA NA NA NA [17] NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA [25] NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA [33] NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA ` – qwww Nov 06 '18 at 11:04
Sorry It was because of a typo from my end – qwww Nov 06 '18 at 11:08
In that case you have to get your levels programatically. I will edit the answer with a code snippet that may solve your problem. – feebarscevicius Nov 06 '18 at 11:39

factor not factorizing x axis labels for plotly

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