

Use the following code to arrive at our time series graph: Now we are all set to create a time series plot in R. If you are interested, ggplot2 package has a variety of themes to choose from. Let's set up the graph theme first (this step isn't necessary, it's my personal preference for the aesthetics purposes). Our goal here is to visualize the data in the column of our choice. The variable we will be plotting in this tutorial is "unemploy", which is the number of unemployed (in thousands).

Take a look at the dataset and the variables it contains: If you have your own in a csv or excel files, you can follow the same procedure to arrive at the result. Note: in this article I create my own datasets. This built-in dataset is the US economic time series. I prefer to call the data I work with “mydata”, so here is the command you would use for that: Although the step of “loading” this dataset isn’t required, it’s a good practice to get familiar with 🙂 R has a variety datasets already built into it.
#Text file time series in r install#
In order to install and “call” the package into your workspace, you should use the following code:

You can learn more about ggplot2 package here. Now, it’s time to create time series plot in R!īelow I will show an example of the usage of a popular R visualization package ggplot2.īelow are the steps we are going to take to make sure we do master the skill of creating time series plot in R:Īs R doesn’t have this command built in, we will need an additional package in order to create a time series plot in R. Therefore, the first step to get even a base level of overview of the data, it is often a good idea to plot the time series data and see there is anything obvious we can identify. It helps identify possible trends and/or seasonalities, and more. Time series type of data is common in industrial processes (machine output per day), KPIs (average ratings per month), or governmental metrics (GDP per year).Īn interesting feature of this data, is that it often tells meaningful insights on either processes or metrics it measures. It is a series of data points, each tied to some “time” which can be year, month, week, day, time.
#Text file time series in r how to#
In this article we will learn how to create time series plot in R using ggplot2 package.Īre you familiar or new to working with time series data?
