>> >> This is of course minor (actually asymptotically, no annoyance at >> all). I am just mentioning it for 'completness' sake and because a >> divinely ideal plotting function should cope with data given in any >> order. >> > > The problem here is that a divinely ideal plotting function > for other people would allow data to be in any order, and plot > it respecting that order, rather than automatically assuming > it should be sorted. The less intrusive alternative, allowing > a "sorted" flag to plot, is an example of "feature creep" -- > once we succumb to the temptation to add this, there are a million > other special cases that people want, and plot ends up with > a million options (and 2^(10^6) interactions among the options > that lead to surprising outcomes).
Or you can adopt a decent theory of statistical graphics where the components are orthogonal and don't interact in surprising ways and end up with something like ggplot2. > While it seems like a pain, > it really makes more sense in the long run to require users > to rearrange their data. Here's a straightforward way: > > > x <- c(1,-1,2,-2,3,-3,4,-4,5,-5) > y <- c(1,0,2,0,3,0,4,0,5,0) > plot(x,y,type='l') #bad > plot(x,y) # this is how it should look like or library(ggplot2) qplot(x, y, geom="line") # vs qplot(x, y, geom="path") Hadley -- http://had.co.nz/ ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.