I would like to add formatted text to a plot (title, axes labels, legend, etc.). A standard solution would be e.g.
plot(1, 1, ylab=substitute(lambda[1]))
where the y-axis label will be the greek letter λ with subscript 1. That is what I want but unfortunatelly it is hard-wired. I would like it to be flexible, i.e. to have an option to pass the text as an argument of a function. So, looking at r help, I found that the argument for substitute is an expression. So I've tried
sometext <- "lambda[1]"
e <- parse(text="sometext")
plot(1, 1, ylab=substitute(e))
But substitute ignores that e is an object an simply prints the text 'e' as the label. So instead I tried
plot(1, 1, ylab=eval(e))
which was better because eval at least evaluates the expression but the label now is literally 'lambda[1]', i.e. it is not evaluated as a greek letter λ with a subscript.
I then explicitly stated that 'e' is an expression doing
e <- expression(sometext)
and running the two previous plot commands but with the same results as before. The closest I came to what I wanted ot achieve was doing
plot(1, 1, ylab=substitute(var[i], list(var="lambda", i=1)))
where at least the 1 is printed as a subscript but the text 'lambda' instead of the greek letter λ is printed.
Any suggestions on how can I achieve what the first command does but not hard-wired? E.g. using a string and somehow converting it to the right object so that it will be displayed properly? Thanks.
Daniel
You can pass the label as an expression like so and then use substitute inside the function:
dwat <- function(expr){
plot(1, 1, ylab = substitute(expr))
}
dwat(lambda[1])
dwat(mu[2])
If you want to pass a string instead of an expression use parse:
dwat_string <- function(string){
plot(1, 1, ylab = parse(text = string))
}
dwat_string("mu[1]")
Another option would be to use the ellipsis approach. That way you can pass an xlab or any other argument to plot:
dwat2 <- function(...){
plot(1, 1, ...)
}
dwat2(ylab = expression(lambda[1]))