# Categorical Axes in F#

How to make categorical charts in F# with Plotly.

In [1]:
#r "nuget: Plotly.NET,  2.0.0-preview.8"
#r "nuget: Plotly.NET.Interactive,  2.0.0-preview.8"

Installed Packages
• Plotly.NET, 2.0.0-preview.8
• Plotly.NET.Interactive, 2.0.0-preview.8

Loading extensions from Plotly.NET.Interactive.dll

Added Kernel Extension including formatters for Plotly.NET charts.

This page shows examples of how to configure 2-dimensional Cartesian axes to visualize categorical (i.e. qualitative, nominal or ordinal data as opposed to continuous numerical data). Such axes are a natural fit for bar charts, waterfall charts, funnel charts, heatmaps, violin charts and box plots, but can also be used with scatter plots and line charts. Configuring gridlines, ticks, tick labels and axis titles on logarithmic axes is done the same was as with linear axes.

# 2-D Cartesian Axis Type and Auto-Detection¶

The different types of Cartesian axes are configured via the LinearAxis.AxisType attribute, which can take on the following values:

'Linear' (see the linear axes tutorial) 'Log' (see the log plot tutorial) 'Date' (see the tutorial on timeseries) 'Category' see below 'MultiCategory' see below The axis type is auto-detected by looking at data from the first trace linked to this axis:

First check for MultiCategory, then date, then category, else default to linear (log is never automatically selected) MultiCategory is just a shape test: is the array nested? date and category: require more than twice as many distinct date or category strings as distinct numbers in order to choose that axis type. Both of these test an evenly-spaced sample of at most 1000 values

# Forcing an axis to be categorical¶

It is possible to force the axis type by setting explicitly AxisType. In the example below the automatic X axis type would be linear (because there are not more than twice as many unique strings as unique numbers) but we force it to be category.

In [2]:
open Plotly.NET
open Plotly.NET.LayoutObjects

let x = [|"a"; "a"; "b"; "c"|]
let y = [|1;2;3;4|]
let xy = Array.zip x y
Chart.Bar(xy)
|> Chart.withYAxis(LinearAxis.init(AxisType=StyleParam.AxisType.Category))

Out[2]:

Box plots and violin plots are often shown with one categorical and one continuous axis.

In [3]:
#r "nuget: Deedle"
#r "nuget: FSharp.Data"

Installed Packages
• Deedle, 2.4.3
• FSharp.Data, 4.2.4
In [4]:
open Deedle
open FSharp.Data

let data=
Http.RequestString "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/plotly/datasets/master/tips.csv"

let getColumnData column=
data
|> Frame.getCol column
|> Series.values
|> Array.ofSeq

let x = getColumnData "sex" |> Seq.cast<string>
let y = getColumnData "total_bill" |> Seq.cast<decimal>

Chart.BoxPlot(x,y,Jitter=0.1,Boxpoints=StyleParam.Boxpoints.All)

Out[4]:
In [5]:
open Plotly.NET

Chart.Violin(x=x,y=y)

Out[5]:

# Automatically Sorting Categories by Name or Total Value¶

Categories can be sorted alphabetically or by value using the CategoryOrder attribute for Axis:

Set CategoryOrder to "StyleParam.CategoryOrder.CategoryAscending" or "StyleParam.CategoryOrder.CategoryDecending" for the alphanumerical order of the category names or "TotalAscending" or "TotalDescending" for numerical order of values. CategoryOrder for more information. Note that sorting the bars by a particular trace isn't possible right now - it's only possible to sort by the total values. Of course, you can always sort your data before plotting it if you need more customization.

This example orders the categories alphabetically with CategoryOrder: 'CategoryAscending'

In [6]:
open Plotly.NET
open Plotly.NET.LayoutObjects

let x = ['b'; 'a'; 'c'; 'd']

[
Chart.Column(x, [2.;5.;1.;9.], Name = "Montreal")
Chart.Column(x, [1.;4.;9.;16.], Name = "Ottawa")
Chart.Column(x, [6.;8.;4.5;8.], Name = "Toronto")
]
|> Chart.combine
|> Chart.withLayout(Layout.init(BarMode=StyleParam.BarMode.Stack))
|> Chart.withXAxis(LinearAxis.init(CategoryOrder=StyleParam.CategoryOrder.CategoryAscending))

Out[6]:
In [7]:
open Plotly.NET

let x = ['b'; 'a'; 'c'; 'd']

[
Chart.Column(x, [2.;5.;1.;9.], Name = "Montreal")
Chart.Column(x, [1.;4.;9.;16.], Name = "Ottawa")
Chart.Column(x, [6.;8.;4.5;8.], Name = "Toronto")
]
|> Chart.combine
|> Chart.withXAxis(LinearAxis.init(CategoryOrder=StyleParam.CategoryOrder.TotalAscending))

Out[7]:

This example shows how to control category order by defining CategoryOrder to "Array" to derive the ordering from the attribute CategoryArray.

In [8]:
open Plotly.NET

let x = ['b'; 'a'; 'c'; 'd']

[
Chart.Column(x, [2.;5.;1.;9.], Name = "Montreal")
Chart.Column(x, [1.;4.;9.;16.], Name = "Ottawa")
Chart.Column(x, [6.;8.;4.5;8.], Name = "Toronto")
]
|> Chart.combine
|> Chart.withLayout(Layout.init(BarMode=StyleParam.BarMode.Stack))
|> Chart.withXAxis(LinearAxis.init(CategoryOrder=StyleParam.CategoryOrder.Array,CategoryArray=['d';'a';'c';'b']))

Out[8]:

# Gridlines, Ticks and Tick Labels¶

By default, gridlines and ticks are not shown on categorical axes but they can be activated:

In [9]:
open Plotly.NET

let x = ['b'; 'a'; 'c'; 'd']

Chart.Column(["A";"B";"C"], [1;3;2])
|> Chart.withXAxis(LinearAxis.init(ShowGrid = true, Ticks = StyleParam.TickOptions.Outside))

Out[9]:

# Multi-categorical Axes¶

A two-level categorical axis (also known as grouped or hierarchical categories, or sub-categories) can be created by specifying a trace's x or y property as a 2-dimensional lists. The first sublist represents the outer categorical value while the second sublist represents the inner categorical value.

Passing in a two-dimensional list as the x or y value of a trace causes the type of the corresponding axis to be set to multicategory.

Here is an example that creates a figure with a 2-level categorical x-axis.

In [10]:
open Plotly.NET

let trace x y name =  //Workaround
let tmp = Trace("bar")
tmp?x <- x
tmp?y <- y
tmp?name <- name
tmp
[
GenericChart.ofTraceObject(trace [["First"; "First";"Second";"Second"];["A"; "B"; "A"; "B"]] [2;3;1;5] "Adults")
GenericChart.ofTraceObject(trace [["First"; "First";"Second";"Second"];["A"; "B"; "A"; "B"]] [8;3;6;5] "Children")
]
|> Chart.combine
|> Chart.withLayout(Layout.init(Title = Title.init("Multi-category axis"), Width = 700))

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