Label X Axis in Time Series Plot using R

Question

I am somewhat new to R and have limited experience with plotting in general. I have been able to work get my data as a time series object in R using zoo, but I am having a

Answer 1

I have captured all the above and a couple of extra options in one place, for my own reference:

# Time series plots with good X axis labels
library(zoo)
# data
today = Sys.Date()
dates = as.Date((today-500):today)
z = zoo (100+cumsum(rnorm(501)), dates)

# method1 : default X axis labels do not look good
?plot.zoo
plot(z)
?plot.ts
plot(ts(z))

# method 2 : Lattice
library(lattice)
?xyplot.zoo
xyplot(z)
xyplot(z, lwd=2, col="tomato")

# method 3 : XTS
library(xts)
?plot.xts
plot(as.xts(z))
plot(as.xts(z), auto.grid=F, major.format="%b %y", las=2)

# method 4 : Base graph
timeline = time(z)
summary(timeline)
index = seq(from=1, to=length(timeline), 90) # put ticks every 90 days
plot(z, xaxt="n")
axis(side=1, at=timeline[index], label=format(timeline[index], "%b %y"), cex.axis=0.8)

# method 5 : ggplot
library(ggplot2)
library(scales)
?date_breaks
df = data.frame(date=as.POSIXct(time(z)), value=as.numeric(z))
head(df)
# default plot
ggplot(df, aes(x=date, y=value)) + geom_line()
# formatted
ggplot(df, aes(x=date, y=value)) + geom_line() + 
   scale_x_datetime(labels=date_format("%b '%y"))
# custom breaks
ggplot(df, aes(x=date, y=value)) + geom_line() + 
   scale_x_datetime(labels=date_format("%b '%y"), breaks=date_breaks("3 months"))