How to change the lab name corresponding to function in ggplot

Question

I have a few functions which are called by a final function to draw ggplot graph. I am using a list to pass to function call so that the graph could be iterated through each of them. However, the xlab is not showing correctly.

first_plot <- function(dta, vari) {
  vari <- enquo(vari)
  dta %>%
    group_by(!!vari) %>%
    summarize(a = mean(!!whatever) +
    ggplot(aes(x=!!vari)) +
    geom_point(aes(a)) 
}

plot_all <- function(dta, item) {
  list_var <- list(name = item)
  plot_list<- list()
  for(i in 1:length(item)) {
    vari <- sym(item[i])
    plot_list[[i]] <- first_plot(dta, vari) 
  }
}

If I pass plot_all(data, c('a','b','c'), I would expect the xlab would show a, b, c correspondingly but it always show vari. Can you help me to troubleshoot this?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Looks like you need as.name instead of enquo in first_plot. Then the !! will work when creating the plot. A simplified example with iris data:

library(ggplot2)
library(cowplot)

first_plot <- function(dta, vari) {
  vari <- as.name(vari)
  ggplot(dta, aes(y = !!vari, x=Species)) +
    geom_point()
}

first_plot(iris, "Sepal.Length")
plot_list <- lapply(names(iris)[1:4], first_plot, dta=iris)
plot_grid(plotlist=plot_list)

Should make this plot