Removing Gaps from Stacked Area Charts in R

Creating a stacked area chart in R is fairly painless, unless your data has gaps. For example, consider the following CSV data showing the number of plan signups per week:


+————+———-+———+
| week | plan | signups |
+————+———-+———+
| 2017-01-26 | Bronze | 10 |
| 2017-01-26 | Gold | 55 |
| 2017-01-26 | Standard | 108 |
| 2017-02-05 | Bronze | 6 |
| 2017-02-05 | Iron | 1 |
| 2017-02-05 | Gold | 37 |
| 2017-02-05 | Standard | 142 |
| 2017-02-12 | Bronze | 17 |
| 2017-02-12 | Iron | 2 |
| 2017-02-12 | Gold | 42 |
| 2017-02-12 | Standard | 119 |
| 2017-02-19 | Bronze | 11 |
| 2017-02-19 | Gold | 26 |
| 2017-02-19 | Silver | 4 |
| 2017-02-19 | Platinum | 1 |
| 2017-02-19 | Standard | 70 |
| 2017-02-26 | Bronze | 13 |
| 2017-02-26 | Silver | 5 |
| 2017-02-26 | Standard | 52 |
+————+———-+———+

view raw

signups-by-week.txt

hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Plotting this highlights the problem:


library(ggplot2)
data <- read.csv("dummy-data.csv", sep = "\t")
g <- ggplot(data, aes(x = week, y = signups, group = plan, fill = plan)) +
geom_area()
print(g)

view raw

stacked-area-chart-gaps.R

hosted with ❤ by GitHub

chart.png

The reason the gaps exist is that not all plans have data points every week. Consider Gold, for example: during the first four weeks there are 55, 37, 42, and 26 signups, but during the last week there isn’t a data point at all. That’s why the chart shows the gap: it’s not that the data indicates Gold went to zero signups the final week; it indicates no data at all.

To remedy this, we need to ensure that every week contains a data point for every plan. That means for weeks where there isn’t a data point for a plan, we need to fill it in with 0 so that R knows that the signups are in fact 0 for that week.

I asked Charles Bordet, an R expert who I hired through Upwork to help me level up my R skills, how he would go about filling in the data.

He provided two solutions:

1. Using expand.grid and full_join


data <- read.csv("data.csv", sep = "\t")
weeks <- unique(data$week)
plans <- unique(data$plan)
combinations <- expand.grid(week = weeks, plan = plans)
data <- full_join(data, combinations, by = c("week" = "week", "plan" = "plan")) %>%
mutate(signups = ifelse(is.na(signups), 0, signups)) %>%
arrange(week, plan)
g <- ggplot(data, aes(x = week, y = signups, group = plan, fill = plan)) +
geom_area(position = "stack")
print(g)

view raw

stacke-area-chart-without-gaps-v1.R

hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Here’s how it works:

expand.grid creates “a data frame from all combinations of the supplied vectors or factors”. By passing it in the weeks and plans, it generates the following data frame called combinations:


week plan
1 2017–01–26 Bronze
2 2017–02–05 Bronze
3 2017–02–12 Bronze
4 2017–02–19 Bronze
5 2017–02–26 Bronze
6 2017–01–26 Gold
7 2017–02–05 Gold
8 2017–02–12 Gold
9 2017–02–19 Gold
10 2017–02–26 Gold
11 2017–01–26 Standard
12 2017–02–05 Standard
13 2017–02–12 Standard
14 2017–02–19 Standard
15 2017–02–26 Standard
16 2017–01–26 Iron
17 2017–02–05 Iron
18 2017–02–12 Iron
19 2017–02–19 Iron
20 2017–02–26 Iron
21 2017–01–26 Silver
22 2017–02–05 Silver
23 2017–02–12 Silver
24 2017–02–19 Silver
25 2017–02–26 Silver
26 2017–01–26 Platinum
27 2017–02–05 Platinum
28 2017–02–12 Platinum
29 2017–02–19 Platinum
30 2017–02–26 Platinum

view raw

expand-grid-weeks-plans.R

hosted with ❤ by GitHub

The full_join then takes all of the rows from data and combines them with combinations based on week and plan. When there aren’t any matches (which will happen when a week doesn’t have a value for a plan), signups gets set to NA:


week plan signups
1 2017-01-26 Bronze 10
2 2017-01-26 Gold 55
3 2017-01-26 Standard 108
4 2017-02-05 Bronze 6
5 2017-02-05 Iron 1
6 2017-02-05 Gold 37
7 2017-02-05 Standard 142
8 2017-02-12 Bronze 17
9 2017-02-12 Iron 2
10 2017-02-12 Gold 42
11 2017-02-12 Standard 119
12 2017-02-19 Bronze 11
13 2017-02-19 Gold 26
14 2017-02-19 Silver 4
15 2017-02-19 Platinum 1
16 2017-02-19 Standard 70
17 2017-02-26 Bronze 13
18 2017-02-26 Silver 5
19 2017-02-26 Standard 52
20 2017-02-26 Gold NA
21 2017-01-26 Iron NA
22 2017-02-19 Iron NA
23 2017-02-26 Iron NA
24 2017-01-26 Silver NA
25 2017-02-05 Silver NA
26 2017-02-12 Silver NA
27 2017-01-26 Platinum NA
28 2017-02-05 Platinum NA
29 2017-02-12 Platinum NA
30 2017-02-26 Platinum NA

view raw

full-join-example.txt

hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Then we just use dplyr’s mutate to replace all of the NA values with zero, and voila:


week plan signups
1 2017-01-26 Bronze 10
2 2017-01-26 Gold 55
3 2017-01-26 Iron 0
4 2017-01-26 Platinum 0
5 2017-01-26 Silver 0
6 2017-01-26 Standard 108
7 2017-02-05 Bronze 6
8 2017-02-05 Gold 37
9 2017-02-05 Iron 1
10 2017-02-05 Platinum 0
11 2017-02-05 Silver 0
12 2017-02-05 Standard 142
13 2017-02-12 Bronze 17
14 2017-02-12 Gold 42
15 2017-02-12 Iron 2
16 2017-02-12 Platinum 0
17 2017-02-12 Silver 0
18 2017-02-12 Standard 119
19 2017-02-19 Bronze 11
20 2017-02-19 Gold 26
21 2017-02-19 Iron 0
22 2017-02-19 Platinum 1
23 2017-02-19 Silver 4
24 2017-02-19 Standard 70
25 2017-02-26 Bronze 13
26 2017-02-26 Gold 0
27 2017-02-26 Iron 0
28 2017-02-26 Platinum 0
29 2017-02-26 Silver 5
30 2017-02-26 Standard 52

view raw

stacked-area-chart-data-without-gaps.txt

hosted with ❤ by GitHub

2. Using spread and gather

The second method Charles provided uses the tidyr package’s spread and gather functions:


data <- read.csv("data.csv", sep = "\t")
data <- data %>%
tidyr::spread(key = plan, value = signups, fill = 0) %>%
tidyr::gather(key = plan, value = signups, – week) %>%
arrange(week, plan)
g <- ggplot(data, aes(x = week, y = signups, group = plan, fill = plan)) +
geom_area(position = "stack")
print(g)

view raw

stacked-area-chart-tidyr-solution.R

hosted with ❤ by GitHub

The spread function takes the key-value pairs (week and plan in this case) and spreads it across multiple columns, making the “long” data “wider”, and filling in the missing values with 0:


week Bronze Gold Iron Platinum Silver Standard
1 2017-01-26 10 55 0 0 0 108
2 2017-02-05 6 37 1 0 0 142
3 2017-02-12 17 42 2 0 0 119
4 2017-02-19 11 26 0 1 4 70
5 2017-02-26 13 0 0 0 5 52

view raw

spread-data.txt

hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Then we take the wide data and convert it back to long data using gather The - week means to exclude the week column when gathering the data that spread produced:


week plan signups
1 2017-01-26 Bronze 10
2 2017-01-26 Gold 55
3 2017-01-26 Iron 0
4 2017-01-26 Platinum 0
5 2017-01-26 Silver 0
6 2017-01-26 Standard 108
7 2017-02-05 Bronze 6
8 2017-02-05 Gold 37
9 2017-02-05 Iron 1
10 2017-02-05 Platinum 0
11 2017-02-05 Silver 0
12 2017-02-05 Standard 142
13 2017-02-12 Bronze 17
14 2017-02-12 Gold 42
15 2017-02-12 Iron 2
16 2017-02-12 Platinum 0
17 2017-02-12 Silver 0
18 2017-02-12 Standard 119
19 2017-02-19 Bronze 11
20 2017-02-19 Gold 26
21 2017-02-19 Iron 0
22 2017-02-19 Platinum 1
23 2017-02-19 Silver 4
24 2017-02-19 Standard 70
25 2017-02-26 Bronze 13
26 2017-02-26 Gold 0
27 2017-02-26 Iron 0
28 2017-02-26 Platinum 0
29 2017-02-26 Silver 5
30 2017-02-26 Standard 52

view raw

spread-and-gather.txt

hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Using either methods, we get a stacked area chart without the gaps ⚡️:

chart.png

One thought on “Removing Gaps from Stacked Area Charts in R”

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