Stacked Histograms Using R Base Graphics

Question

Using ggplot2 it is very easy to create stacked histograms:

library(ggplot2)

ggplot(data = iris, aes(x = Sepal.Length, fill = Species)) + 
  geom_histogram(colour = 'white') 

ggplot(data = iris, aes(x = Sepal.Length, fill = Species)) + 
  geom_histogram(colour = 'white', position = 'fill')

I would like to know how to create both histograms using only R base graphics .

Answer 1

You can generate both plots with barplot() , based on a frequency table of Species and Sepal.Length .

# Create frequency table
tab <- table(iris$Species, iris$Sepal.Length)

# Stacked barplot
barplot(tab)

# Stacked percent barplot
barplot(prop.table(tab, 2)) # Need to convert to marginal table first