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rggplot2positionaxisaxis-labels

ggplot with date-x-axis at y=0 and labels at the bottom

I want to make a plot (ggplot) with a date x axis, where the x axis is at y=0, but the x labels are at the bottom. It should look more or less like the graph in this picture: enter image description here

I tried it with hline like this:

ggplot(coe_melt, aes(x=time, y=value, color=score))+
geom_hline(yintercept=0)+ 
geom_line(size=2)+
scale_color_manual(values=c('blue','magenta','red','green'), breaks=c('Profitability', 'Growth', 'Safety','Payout'))+
      theme_bw()+
      theme(legend.position = 'bottom')+
      theme(axis.ticks.x = element_blank())

I read in several threads that it can be done with scale_x_continuous(), but the problem is that my x axis contains dates and not numbers. When I tried it with scale_x_continous() I got an error (origin not supplied). I tried it with scale_x_date, but I didn't manage to get the result. With the code above I get the following plot: enter image description here

In the end I want a horizontal line/axis with ticks at y=0, I want to remove the "lower x axis" and additionally I would like to have "tight" axes (like in the first picture).

My data looks like this:

  > head(coe_melt)
                time         score     value
        1 1977-07-01 Profitability 0.4737371
        2 1978-07-01 Profitability 0.4918117
        3 1979-07-01 Profitability 0.4249600
        4 1980-07-01 Profitability 0.3847234
        5 1981-07-01 Profitability 0.3604534
        6 1982-07-01 Profitability 0.4012554
    > coe_melt[c(1,40,79,118),]
              time         score       value
    1   1977-07-01 Profitability  0.47373711
    40  1977-07-01        Growth  0.51024065
    79  1977-07-01        Safety  0.02525786
    118 1977-07-01        Payout -0.12501210
Solution

  • See my answer below

    ggplot(coe_melt, aes(x=time, y=value, color=score))+
  geom_hline(yintercept=0)+ 
  geom_line(size=2)+
  scale_color_manual(values=c('blue','magenta','red','green'), 
                     breaks=c('Profitability', 'Growth', 'Safety','Payout'))+
  theme_bw()+
  theme(legend.position = 'bottom')+
  theme(axis.ticks.x = element_blank())+

  theme(plot.background = element_blank(),
        panel.grid.major = element_blank(),
        panel.grid.minor = element_blank() )+
  theme(panel.border= element_blank())+
  theme(axis.line.y = element_line(color="black", size = 0.5))+
  expand_limits(y=c(-0.4, 0.8))+
  scale_y_continuous(breaks=seq(-0.4, 0.8, 0.2))