Positional scales for binning continuous data (x & y)

scale_x_binned() and scale_y_binned() are scales that discretize continuous position data. You can use these scales to transform continuous inputs before using it with a geom that requires discrete positions. An example is using scale_x_binned() with geom_bar() to create a histogram.

scale_x_binned(
  name = waiver(),
  n.breaks = 10,
  nice.breaks = TRUE,
  breaks = waiver(),
  labels = waiver(),
  limits = NULL,
  expand = waiver(),
  oob = squish,
  na.value = NA_real_,
  right = TRUE,
  show.limits = FALSE,
  trans = "identity",
  guide = waiver(),
  position = "bottom"
)

scale_y_binned(
  name = waiver(),
  n.breaks = 10,
  nice.breaks = TRUE,
  breaks = waiver(),
  labels = waiver(),
  limits = NULL,
  expand = waiver(),
  oob = squish,
  na.value = NA_real_,
  right = TRUE,
  show.limits = FALSE,
  trans = "identity",
  guide = waiver(),
  position = "left"
)

Arguments

name	The name of the scale. Used as the axis or legend title. If waiver(), the default, the name of the scale is taken from the first mapping used for that aesthetic. If NULL, the legend title will be omitted.
n.breaks	The number of break points to create if breaks are not given directly.
nice.breaks	Logical. Should breaks be attempted placed at nice values instead of exactly evenly spaced between the limits. If TRUE (default) the scale will ask the transformation object to create breaks, and this may result in a different number of breaks than requested. Ignored if breaks are given explicitly.
breaks	One of: NULL for no breaks waiver() for the default breaks computed by the transformation object A numeric vector of positions A function that takes the limits as input and returns breaks as output (e.g., a function returned by scales::extended_breaks()). Also accepts rlang lambda function notation.
labels	One of: NULL for no labels waiver() for the default labels computed by the transformation object A character vector giving labels (must be same length as breaks) A function that takes the breaks as input and returns labels as output. Also accepts rlang lambda function notation.
limits	One of: NULL to use the default scale range A numeric vector of length two providing limits of the scale. Use NA to refer to the existing minimum or maximum A function that accepts the existing (automatic) limits and returns new limits. Also accepts rlang lambda function notation. Note that setting limits on positional scales will remove data outside of the limits. If the purpose is to zoom, use the limit argument in the coordinate system (see coord_cartesian()).
expand	For position scales, a vector of range expansion constants used to add some padding around the data to ensure that they are placed some distance away from the axes. Use the convenience function expansion() to generate the values for the expand argument. The defaults are to expand the scale by 5% on each side for continuous variables, and by 0.6 units on each side for discrete variables.
oob	One of: Function that handles limits outside of the scale limits (out of bounds). Also accepts rlang lambda function notation. The default (scales::censor()) replaces out of bounds values with NA. scales::squish() for squishing out of bounds values into range. scales::squish_infinite() for squishing infinite values into range.
na.value	Missing values will be replaced with this value.
right	Should values on the border between bins be part of the right (upper) bin?
show.limits	should the limits of the scale appear as ticks
trans	For continuous scales, the name of a transformation object or the object itself. Built-in transformations include "asn", "atanh", "boxcox", "date", "exp", "hms", "identity", "log", "log10", "log1p", "log2", "logit", "modulus", "probability", "probit", "pseudo_log", "reciprocal", "reverse", "sqrt" and "time". A transformation object bundles together a transform, its inverse, and methods for generating breaks and labels. Transformation objects are defined in the scales package, and are called <name>_trans (e.g., scales::boxcox_trans()). You can create your own transformation with scales::trans_new().
guide	A function used to create a guide or its name. See guides() for more information.
position	For position scales, The position of the axis. left or right for y axes, top or bottom for x axes.

See also

Other position scales: scale_x_continuous(), scale_x_date(), scale_x_discrete()

Examples

# Create a histogram by binning the x-axis
ggplot(mtcars) +
  geom_bar(aes(mpg)) +
  scale_x_binned()