Visualize Table Object in Graphic in R (Example)

In this R tutorial you’ll learn how to draw a plot of a table object.

The tutorial consists of these contents:

Let’s dive right in:

Creating Example Data

I use the following data as basement for this R tutorial.

my_tab <- table(c("a", "a", "b", "a", "c", "c"))  # Create example table
my_tab                                            # Print example table
# a b c 
# 3 1 2

The previous output of the RStudio console shows the structure of our exemplifying data: A data object with the table class.

Example: Draw Barchart of Table Using ggplot2 Package

This example demonstrates how to draw a table object in a plot.

For this, we’ll use the functions of the ggplot2 package. In order to use the functions of the ggplot2 package, we first need to install and load ggplot2:

install.packages("ggplot2")                       # Install ggplot2 package
library("ggplot2")                                # Load ggplot2

Next, we have to convert our table to the data.frame class using the as.data.frame function:

my_data <- as.data.frame(my_tab)                  # Convert table to data.frame
my_data                                           # Print data frame

In the next step, we can use this data frame to draw a ggplot2 barplot of our data:

ggplot(my_data,                                   # Draw barchart of table
       aes(x = Var1,
           y = Freq)) + 
  geom_bar(stat = "identity")

As shown in Figure 1, we have plotted a ggplot2 barchart showing the values of our table in separate bars by running the previous syntax.

Video, Further Resources & Summary

If you need further info on the R programming code of this tutorial, you might want to watch the following video that I have published on my YouTube channel. I illustrate the contents of this article in the video.

Furthermore, you might want to read some of the related articles on my website.

• Add Table to ggplot2 Plot in R
• Save Plot in Data Object in Base R in R
• Extract Values & Names from table Object
• Graphics Overview in R
• R Programming Language

To summarize: In this tutorial you have learned how to create a plot based on a table object in R. Let me know in the comments section, in case you have any additional questions.