Ggplot2: Difference between revisions

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'''ggplot2''' is an [[open-source]] [[data visualization]] [[R package|package]] for the [[Computational statistics|statistical programming]] language [[R (programming language)|R]]. Created by [[Hadley Wickham]] in 2005, ggplot2 is an implementation of [[Leland Wilkinson]]'s ''[[Wilkinson's Grammar of Graphics|Grammar of Graphics]]''—a general scheme for data visualization which breaks up graphs into semantic components such as scales and layers. ggplot2 can serve as a replacement for the base graphics in R and contains a number of defaults for web and print display of common scales. Since 2005, ggplot2 has grown in use to become one of the most popular R packages.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Wickham|first=Hadley|title=ggplot2: Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis|journal=Journal of Statistical Software|date=July 2010|volume=35|issue=1|url=http://www.jstatsoft.org/v35/b01/paper}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Wilkinson|first=Leland|author-link=Leland Wilkinson|title=ggplot2: Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis by WICKHAM, H|journal=Biometrics|date=June 2011|volume=67|issue=2|pages=678–679|doi=10.1111/j.1541-0420.2011.01616.x}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/ggplot2/index.html|title=CRAN - Package ggplot2|date=12 October 2023 }}</ref>

== Updates ==

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On 25 February 2014, Hadley Wickham formally announced that "ggplot2 is shifting to maintenance mode. This means that we are no longer adding new features, but we will continue to fix major bugs, and consider new features submitted as pull requests. In recognition [of] this significant milestone, the next version of ggplot2 will be 1.0.0".<ref>{{cite web |last=Wickham|first=Hadley|title=ggplot2 development|url= https://groups.google.com/d/msg/ggplot2/SSxt8B8QLfo/J2dfKR92rsYJ|publisher=ggplot2 Google Group|access-date=26 February 2014}}</ref>

On 21 December 2015, ggplotggplot2 2.0.0 was released. In the announcement, it was stated that "ggplot2 now has an official extension mechanism. This means that others can now easily create their [own] stats, geoms and positions, and provide them in other packages."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://blog.rstudio.com/2015/12/21/ggplot2-2-0-0/ |access-date=2021-06-21 |title=ggplot 2.0.0 |date=21 December 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210207054047/https://blog.rstudio.com/2015/12/21/ggplot2-2-0-0/ |archive-date=2021-02-07 |url-status=live}}</ref>

On 5 July 2018, ggplot2 3.0.0 was released (initially planned as a ggplot2 2.3.0). This now provides support for tidy evaluation allowing quasiquotation in ggplot2 functions.<ref>{{Cite web |title=ggplot2 3.0.0 |url=https://www.tidyverse.org/blog/2018/07/ggplot2-3-0-0/ |access-date=2025-07-13 |website=www.tidyverse.org |language=en-us}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Wickham |first=Hadley |url=https://adv-r.hadley.nz/quasiquotation.html |title=19 Quasiquotation {{!}} Advanced R |language=en}}</ref>

==Comparison with base graphics and other packages==

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Plots may be created via the convenience function <code>qplot()</code> where arguments and defaults are meant to be similar to base R's <code>plot()</code> function.<ref>{{cite book|title=R: A language and environment for statistical computing|year=2011|publisher=R Foundation for Statistical Computing|___location=Vienna, Austria|isbn=978-3-900051-07-5|url=http://www.R-project.org/|author=R Development Core Team}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Ginestet|first=Cedric|title=ggplot2: Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis |journal=Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A |date=January 2011 |volume=174 |issue=1 |pages=245–246 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-985X.2010.00676_9.x}}</ref> More complex plotting capacity is available via <code>ggplot()</code> which exposes the user to more explicit elements of the grammar.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Muenchen|first1=Robert A.|last2=Hilbe|first2=Joseph M |title=R for Stata Users |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1-4419-1317-3 |doi=10.1007/978-1-4419-1318-0_16 |chapter=Graphics with ggplot2|series=Statistics and Computing|year=2010|pages=385–452}}</ref>

== Impact ==

After ten years of being developed, ggplot2 has continued to make an impact on the data visualization community: it has had over 10 million downloads, up to 400,000 downloads in a given month, and is used by data scientists from the US government to journalists at ''[[The New York Times]]'' to analyze and present data.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Kopf |first=Dan |date=2017-06-18 |title=All hail ggplot2—The code powering all those excellent charts is 10 years old |url=https://qz.com/1007328/all-hail-ggplot2-the-code-powering-all-those-excellent-charts-is-10-years-old |access-date=2025-05-13 |website=Quartz |language=en}}</ref> Wickham posits the success of ggplot2 comes from the increased popularity of the R language and the relative ease of making aesthetically appealing graphics. Along with more serious uses of ggplot2, Wickham also supports the more unusual use cases, like exploring factors for winning in the reality TV show [[RuPaul's Drag Race]].<ref name=":0" />

==Related projects==

See [[Wilkinson's Grammar of Graphics#Related projects|implementations of The Grammar of Graphics]].

* ggpy, ggplot for Python,<ref>{{cite web |title=yhat/ggpy: ggplot port for python |url=https://github.com/yhat/ggpy |access-date=2024-02-01 |website=[[GitHub]] |publisher=yhat}}</ref> but has not been updated since 2016-11-20

* plotnine<ref>{{cite web |url=https://plotnine.readthedocs.io/en/stable/about-plotnine.html |title=plotnine |access-date=2 August 2023 |archive-date=2 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230802015937/https://plotnine.readthedocs.io/en/stable/about-plotnine.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> started as an effort to improve the scalability of ggplot for [[Python (programming language)|Python]] and is largely compatible with ggplot2 syntax.

* Plotly - Interactive, online ggplot2 graphs<ref>{{cite web |title=Plotly graphing library for ggplot2 in ggplot2 |url=https://plot.ly/ggplot2/ |access-date=2024-02-01 |website=Plotly Graphing Libraries |publisher=[[Plotly]]}}</ref>

* gramm, a plotting class for [[MATLAB]] inspired by ggplot2<ref>{{cite web |title=ggplot for Matlab |url=https://github.com/piermorel/gramm |access-date=11 December 2015 |website=[[GitHub]] |publisher=Pierre Morel (@piermorel)}}</ref>

* gadfly, a system for plotting and visualization written in [[Julia (programming language)|Julia]], based largely on ggplot2<ref>{{cite web |title=Gadfly.jl |url=http://gadflyjl.org |access-date=11 September 2018 |website=Gadfly.jl}}</ref>

* Chart::GGPlot - ggplot2 port in [[Perl]]<ref>{{cite web |title=Stephan Loyd/Chart-GGPlot-0.0001 |url=https://metacpan.org/release/Chart-GGPlot |access-date=30 March 2019 |website=MetaCPAN}}</ref>

* The Lets-Plot for Python library includes a native backend and a Python [[API]], which was mostly based on the ggplot2 package well-known to data scientists who use R.<ref>{{cite web |title=JetBrains/lets-plot |url=https://github.com/JetBrains/lets-plot |access-date=3 April 2021 |website=[[GitHub]] |publisher=[[JetBrains]]}}</ref>

* Lets-Plot Kotlin API is an open-source plotting library for statistical data implemented using the [[Kotlin (programming language)|Kotlin programming language]], and is built on the principles of layered graphics first described in the Leland Wilkinson's work ''The Grammar of Graphics''.<ref>{{cite web |title=JetBrains/lets-plot-kotlin |url=https://github.com/JetBrains/lets-plot-kotlin |access-date=4 April 2021 |website=[[GitHub]] |publisher=[[JetBrains]]}}</ref>

* ggplotnim, plotting library using the [[Nim (programming language)|Nim]] programming language inspired by ggplot2.<ref>{{cite web |title=ggplotnim |url=https://github.com/Vindaar/ggplotnim |access-date=1 August 2023 |website=[[GitHub]] |publisher=Vindaar}}</ref>

* [[Vega and Vega-Lite visualisation grammars|Vega and Vega-Lite]] are plotting libraries that use JSON to specify plots.

== References ==

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==Further reading==

* {{cite book|last=Wilkinson|first=Leland|author-link=Leland Wilkinson|title=The Grammar of Graphics|year=2005|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-0-387-98774-3}}

* {{cite book|last=Wickham|first=Hadley|title=R for Data Science|url=https://r4ds.had.co.nz/|year=2017|publisher=O'Reilly Media|isbn=978-1491910399}}

* {{cite video |people= Wickham, Hadley|date= 6 June 2011|title=Engineering Data Analysis (with R and ggplot2) |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaxJwC_MP9Q |publisher= Google Tech Talks}}

* {{cite book|last=Wickham|first=Hadley|title=ggplot2: Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis|url=https://ggplot2-book.org/|year=2016|publisher=[[Springer Science+Business Media]]|isbn=978-3319242750|edition=2nd}}

* {{cite book|last=Wickham|first=Hadley|title=R for Data Science|url=https://r4ds.had.co.nz/|year=2017|publisher=O'Reilly Media|isbn=978-1491910399}}

== External links ==

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[[Category:Free plotting software]]

[[Category:Free R (programming language) software]]

[[Category:Free data analysis software]]

[[Category:Visualization API]]

[[Category:Software using the MIT license]]