legend
Add Legends to Plots
This function can be used to add legends to plots. Note that a call
to the function locator(1)
can be used in place of the x
and y
arguments.
- Keywords
- aplot
Usage
legend(x, y = NULL, legend, fill = NULL, col = par("col"), border = "black", lty, lwd, pch, angle = 45, density = NULL, bty = "o", bg = par("bg"), box.lwd = par("lwd"), box.lty = par("lty"), box.col = par("fg"), pt.bg = NA, cex = 1, pt.cex = cex, pt.lwd = lwd, xjust = 0, yjust = 1, x.intersp = 1, y.intersp = 1, adj = c(0, 0.5), text.width = NULL, text.col = par("col"), text.font = NULL, merge = do.lines && has.pch, trace = FALSE, plot = TRUE, ncol = 1, horiz = FALSE, title = NULL, inset = 0, xpd, title.col = text.col, title.adj = 0.5, seg.len = 2)
Arguments
- x, y
- the x and y co-ordinates to be used to position the legend.
They can be specified by keyword or in any way which is accepted by
xy.coords
: See Details. - legend
- a character or expression vector
of length $\ge 1$ to appear in the legend. Other
objects will be coerced by
as.graphicsAnnot
. - fill
- if specified, this argument will cause boxes filled with the specified colors (or shaded in the specified colors) to appear beside the legend text.
- col
- the color of points or lines appearing in the legend.
- border
- the border color for the boxes (used only if
fill
is specified). - lty, lwd
- the line types and widths for lines appearing in the legend. One of these two must be specified for line drawing.
- pch
- the plotting symbols appearing in the legend, as
numeric vector or a vector of 1-character strings (see
points
). Unlikepoints
, this can all be specified as a single multi-character string. Must be specified for symbol drawing. - angle
- angle of shading lines.
- density
- the density of shading lines, if numeric and
positive. If
NULL
or negative orNA
color filling is assumed. - bty
- the type of box to be drawn around the legend. The allowed
values are
"o"
(the default) and"n"
. - bg
- the background color for the legend box. (Note that this is
only used if
bty != "n"
.) - box.lty, box.lwd, box.col
- the line type, width and color for
the legend box (if
bty = "o"
). - pt.bg
- the background color for the
points
, corresponding to its argumentbg
. - cex
- character expansion factor relative to current
par("cex")
. Used for text, and provides the default forpt.cex
andtitle.cex
. - pt.cex
- expansion factor(s) for the points.
- pt.lwd
- line width for the points, defaults to the one for
lines, or if that is not set, to
par("lwd")
. - xjust
- how the legend is to be justified relative to the legend x location. A value of 0 means left justified, 0.5 means centered and 1 means right justified.
- yjust
- the same as
xjust
for the legend y location. - x.intersp
- character interspacing factor for horizontal (x) spacing.
- y.intersp
- the same for vertical (y) line distances.
- adj
- numeric of length 1 or 2; the string adjustment for legend
text. Useful for y-adjustment when
labels
are plotmath expressions. - text.width
- the width of the legend text in x (
"user"
) coordinates. (Should be positive even for a reversed x axis.) Defaults to the proper value computed bystrwidth(legend)
. - text.col
- the color used for the legend text.
- text.font
- the font used for the legend text, see
text
. - merge
- logical; if
TRUE
, merge points and lines but not filled boxes. Defaults toTRUE
if there are points and lines. - trace
- logical; if
TRUE
, shows howlegend
does all its magical computations. - plot
- logical. If
FALSE
, nothing is plotted but the sizes are returned. - ncol
- the number of columns in which to set the legend items (default is 1, a vertical legend).
- horiz
- logical; if
TRUE
, set the legend horizontally rather than vertically (specifyinghoriz
overrides thencol
specification). - title
- a character string or length-one expression giving a
title to be placed at the top of the legend. Other objects will be
coerced by
as.graphicsAnnot
. - inset
- inset distance(s) from the margins as a fraction of the plot region when legend is placed by keyword.
- xpd
- if supplied, a value of the graphical parameter
xpd
to be used while the legend is being drawn. - title.col
- color for
title
. - title.adj
- horizontal adjustment for
title
: see the help forpar("adj")
. - seg.len
- the length of lines drawn to illustrate
lty
and/orlwd
(in units of character widths).
Details
Arguments x
, y
, legend
are interpreted in a
non-standard way to allow the coordinates to be specified via
one or two arguments. If legend
is missing and y
is not
numeric, it is assumed that the second argument is intended to be
legend
and that the first argument specifies the coordinates.
The coordinates can be specified in any way which is accepted by
xy.coords
. If this gives the coordinates of one point,
it is used as the top-left coordinate of the rectangle containing the
legend. If it gives the coordinates of two points, these specify
opposite corners of the rectangle (either pair of corners, in any
order).
The location may also be specified by setting x
to a single
keyword from the list "bottomright"
, "bottom"
,
"bottomleft"
, "left"
, "topleft"
,
"top"
, "topright"
, "right"
and
"center"
. This places the legend on the inside of the plot
frame at the given location. Partial argument matching is used. The
optional inset
argument specifies how far the legend is inset
from the plot margins. If a single value is given, it is used for
both margins; if two values are given, the first is used for x
-
distance, the second for y
-distance.
Attribute arguments such as col
, pch
, lty
, etc,
are recycled if necessary: merge
is not. Set entries of
lty
to 0
or set entries of lwd
to NA
to
suppress lines in corresponding legend entries; set pch
values to NA
to suppress points.
Points are drawn after lines in order that they can cover the
line with their background color pt.bg
, if applicable.
See the examples for how to right-justify labels.
Since they are not used for Unicode code points, values -31:-1
are silently omitted, as are NA
and ""
values.
Value
-
A list with list components
- rect
- a list with components
w
,h
- positive numbers giving width and height of the legend's box.
left
,top
- x and y coordinates of upper left corner of the box.
- text
- a list with components
x, y
- numeric vectors of length
length(legend)
, giving the x and y coordinates of the legend's text(s).
returned invisibly.
References
Becker, R. A., Chambers, J. M. and Wilks, A. R. (1988) The New S Language. Wadsworth & Brooks/Cole.
Murrell, P. (2005) R Graphics. Chapman & Hall/CRC Press.
See Also
plot
, barplot
which uses legend()
, and
text
for more examples of math expressions.
Examples
library(graphics)
## Run the example in '?matplot' or the following:
leg.txt <- c("Setosa Petals", "Setosa Sepals",
"Versicolor Petals", "Versicolor Sepals")
y.leg <- c(4.5, 3, 2.1, 1.4, .7)
cexv <- c(1.2, 1, 4/5, 2/3, 1/2)
matplot(c(1, 8), c(0, 4.5), type = "n", xlab = "Length", ylab = "Width",
main = "Petal and Sepal Dimensions in Iris Blossoms")
for (i in seq(cexv)) {
text (1, y.leg[i] - 0.1, paste("cex=", formatC(cexv[i])), cex = 0.8, adj = 0)
legend(3, y.leg[i], leg.txt, pch = "sSvV", col = c(1, 3), cex = cexv[i])
}
## 'merge = TRUE' for merging lines & points:
x <- seq(-pi, pi, len = 65)
plot(x, sin(x), type = "l", ylim = c(-1.2, 1.8), col = 3, lty = 2)
points(x, cos(x), pch = 3, col = 4)
lines(x, tan(x), type = "b", lty = 1, pch = 4, col = 6)
title("legend(..., lty = c(2, -1, 1), pch = c(NA, 3, 4), merge = TRUE)",
cex.main = 1.1)
legend(-1, 1.9, c("sin", "cos", "tan"), col = c(3, 4, 6),
text.col = "green4", lty = c(2, -1, 1), pch = c(NA, 3, 4),
merge = TRUE, bg = "gray90")
## right-justifying a set of labels: thanks to Uwe Ligges
x <- 1:5; y1 <- 1/x; y2 <- 2/x
plot(rep(x, 2), c(y1, y2), type = "n", xlab = "x", ylab = "y")
lines(x, y1); lines(x, y2, lty = 2)
temp <- legend("topright", legend = c(" ", " "),
text.width = strwidth("1,000,000"),
lty = 1:2, xjust = 1, yjust = 1,
title = "Line Types")
text(temp$rect$left + temp$rect$w, temp$text$y,
c("1,000", "1,000,000"), pos = 2)
##--- log scaled Examples ------------------------------
leg.txt <- c("a one", "a two")
par(mfrow = c(2, 2))
for(ll in c("","x","y","xy")) {
plot(2:10, log = ll, main = paste0("log = '", ll, "'"))
abline(1, 1)
lines(2:3, 3:4, col = 2)
points(2, 2, col = 3)
rect(2, 3, 3, 2, col = 4)
text(c(3,3), 2:3, c("rect(2,3,3,2, col=4)",
"text(c(3,3),2:3,\"c(rect(...)\")"), adj = c(0, 0.3))
legend(list(x = 2,y = 8), legend = leg.txt, col = 2:3, pch = 1:2,
lty = 1, merge = TRUE) #, trace = TRUE)
}
par(mfrow = c(1,1))
##-- Math expressions: ------------------------------
x <- seq(-pi, pi, len = 65)
plot(x, sin(x), type = "l", col = 2, xlab = expression(phi),
ylab = expression(f(phi)))
abline(h = -1:1, v = pi/2*(-6:6), col = "gray90")
lines(x, cos(x), col = 3, lty = 2)
ex.cs1 <- expression(plain(sin) * phi, paste("cos", phi)) # 2 ways
utils::str(legend(-3, .9, ex.cs1, lty = 1:2, plot = FALSE,
adj = c(0, 0.6))) # adj y !
legend(-3, 0.9, ex.cs1, lty = 1:2, col = 2:3, adj = c(0, 0.6))
require(stats)
x <- rexp(100, rate = .5)
hist(x, main = "Mean and Median of a Skewed Distribution")
abline(v = mean(x), col = 2, lty = 2, lwd = 2)
abline(v = median(x), col = 3, lty = 3, lwd = 2)
ex12 <- expression(bar(x) == sum(over(x[i], n), i == 1, n),
hat(x) == median(x[i], i == 1, n))
utils::str(legend(4.1, 30, ex12, col = 2:3, lty = 2:3, lwd = 2))
## 'Filled' boxes -- for more, see example(plot.factor)
op <- par(bg = "white") # to get an opaque box for the legend
plot(cut(weight, 3) ~ group, data = PlantGrowth, col = NULL,
density = 16*(1:3))
par(op)
## Using 'ncol' :
x <- 0:64/64
matplot(x, outer(x, 1:7, function(x, k) sin(k * pi * x)),
type = "o", col = 1:7, ylim = c(-1, 1.5), pch = "*")
op <- par(bg = "antiquewhite1")
legend(0, 1.5, paste("sin(", 1:7, "pi * x)"), col = 1:7, lty = 1:7,
pch = "*", ncol = 4, cex = 0.8)
legend(.8,1.2, paste("sin(", 1:7, "pi * x)"), col = 1:7, lty = 1:7,
pch = "*", cex = 0.8)
legend(0, -.1, paste("sin(", 1:4, "pi * x)"), col = 1:4, lty = 1:4,
ncol = 2, cex = 0.8)
legend(0, -.4, paste("sin(", 5:7, "pi * x)"), col = 4:6, pch = 24,
ncol = 2, cex = 1.5, lwd = 2, pt.bg = "pink", pt.cex = 1:3)
par(op)
## point covering line :
y <- sin(3*pi*x)
plot(x, y, type = "l", col = "blue",
main = "points with bg & legend(*, pt.bg)")
points(x, y, pch = 21, bg = "white")
legend(.4,1, "sin(c x)", pch = 21, pt.bg = "white", lty = 1, col = "blue")
## legends with titles at different locations
plot(x, y, type = "n")
legend("bottomright", "(x,y)", pch = 1, title = "bottomright")
legend("bottom", "(x,y)", pch = 1, title = "bottom")
legend("bottomleft", "(x,y)", pch = 1, title = "bottomleft")
legend("left", "(x,y)", pch = 1, title = "left")
legend("topleft", "(x,y)", pch = 1, title = "topleft, inset = .05",
inset = .05)
legend("top", "(x,y)", pch = 1, title = "top")
legend("topright", "(x,y)", pch = 1, title = "topright, inset = .02",
inset = .02)
legend("right", "(x,y)", pch = 1, title = "right")
legend("center", "(x,y)", pch = 1, title = "center")
# using text.font (and text.col):
op <- par(mfrow = c(2, 2), mar = rep(2.1, 4))
c6 <- terrain.colors(10)[1:6]
for(i in 1:4) {
plot(1, type = "n", axes = FALSE, ann = FALSE); title(paste("text.font =",i))
legend("top", legend = LETTERS[1:6], col = c6,
ncol = 2, cex = 2, lwd = 3, text.font = i, text.col = c6)
}
par(op)
Community examples
legend(3, 30, legend=c("Line 1", "Line 2"),col=c("red", "blue"), lty=1:2, cex=0.8)