squareplot function

Create a squareplot alternative to a segmented barplot

Create a squareplot as an alternative to a segmented barplot. Useful when the viewer is interested in exact counts in the categories. A squareplot is often used by the New York Times. A grid of squares is presented with each color representing a different category. The colors appear contiguously reading top to bottom, left to right. The colors segment the graph as a segmented bargraph, but the squares allow an interested reader to easily tally the counts.

squareplot(x, col = gray(seq(0.5, 1, length = length(x))),
border =NULL, nrows = ceiling(sqrt(sum(x))), ncols =
ceiling(sum(x)/nrows),
...)

Arguments

• x: a vector of counts
• col: a vector of colors
• border: border color passed to polygon
• nrows: number of rows
• ncols: number of columns
• ...: passed to title

Returns

Creates the graph, but has no return value.

References

The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com. In particular, Sports page 6, June 15, 2003.

Author(s)

John Verzani

Examples

## A Roger Clemens Cy Young year -- roids?
squareplot(c(21,7,6),col=c("blue","green","white"))