How to get x-axis to show all months in dataset

April 28, 2022

I can’t figure out how to customize the x-axis in the graph below. At minimum, I would like each month to be labeled on the x-axis. All help is appreciated.

dput(head(cohort1,10))
structure(list(DeerId = structure(c(1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 
1L, 1L, 1L), .Label = c("A82118", "A82120", "A82121", "A82122", 
"A82126", "A82127", "A82132", "A82135", "A82136", "A82139", "A82140", 
"A82141", "A82142", "A82145", "A82146"), class = "factor"), DateTime = structure(c(1557401400, 
1557403200, 1557405000, 1557406800, 1557408600, 1557410400, 1557412200, 
1557414000, 1557415800, 1557417600), tzone = "CST6CDT", class = c("POSIXct", 
"POSIXt")), Hour = structure(c(7L, 8L, 8L, 9L, 9L, 10L, 10L, 
11L, 11L, 12L), .Label = c("0", "1", "2", "3", "4", "5", "6", 
"7", "8", "9", "10", "11", "12", "13", "14", "15", "16", "17", 
"18", "19", "20", "21", "22", "23"), class = "factor"), Mean_dist_m = c(3002.86596551194, 
3072.72756617098, 3095.13565305238, 3091.97138086376, 3021.62530500961, 
2991.56358399469, 3075.78252594177, 3037.51460737638, 3023.45492190491, 
3016.40127683411)), class = c("grouped_df", "tbl_df", "tbl", 
"data.frame"), row.names = c(NA, -10L), groups = structure(list(
    DeerId = structure(c(1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 
    1L), .Label = c("A82118", "A82120", "A82121", "A82122", "A82126", 
    "A82127", "A82132", "A82135", "A82136", "A82139", "A82140", 
    "A82141", "A82142", "A82145", "A82146"), class = "factor"), 
    DateTime = structure(c(1557401400, 1557403200, 1557405000, 
    1557406800, 1557408600, 1557410400, 1557412200, 1557414000, 
    1557415800, 1557417600), tzone = "CST6CDT", class = c("POSIXct", 
    "POSIXt")), .rows = structure(list(1L, 2L, 3L, 4L, 5L, 6L, 
        7L, 8L, 9L, 10L), ptype = integer(0), class = c("vctrs_list_of", 
    "vctrs_vctr", "list"))), class = c("tbl_df", "tbl", "data.frame"
), row.names = c(NA, -10L), .drop = TRUE))

Dist_Date_plot<-ggplot(cohort1, aes(DateTime, Mean_dist_m)) + 
  geom_line() +
  labs(title = "Deer-Cattle Proximity Across Months", x='Time Period', y='Mean Distance (m)')  +
  theme(axis.text=element_text(size=20),axis.title=element_text(size=25,face="bold"),
        plot.title = element_text(size=30,hjust = 0.5))+
  theme(panel.grid.major = element_blank(), panel.grid.minor = element_blank(),
        panel.background = element_blank(), axis.line = element_line(colour = "black"))
Dist_Date_plot

>Solution :

You can use scale_x_datetime. Note that your sample data only has a few hours on a single day, so it almost just looks like a vertical line here:

ggplot(cohort1, aes(DateTime, Mean_dist_m)) + 
  geom_line() +
  scale_x_datetime(limits = as.POSIXct(c("2019-02-01", "2020-02-01")),
                   labels = function(x) format(x, "%b"),
                   breaks = seq(as.POSIXct("2019-01-01"),
                                as.POSIXct("2020-01-01"), 
                                by = "month")) +
  labs(title = "Deer-Cattle Proximity Across Months", 
       x     = 'Time Period',
       y     = 'Mean Distance (m)') +
  theme(axis.text        = element_text(size = 20),
        axis.title       = element_text(size = 25, face = "bold"),
        plot.title       = element_text(size = 30, hjust = 0.5),
        panel.grid.major = element_blank(),
        panel.grid.minor = element_blank(),
        panel.background = element_blank(),
        axis.line        = element_line(colour = "black"))