I get the same result. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that month is is a factor. You would probably be okay if you converted month to a date format but I don't have time, at the moment, to test it as I always muck up date conversions and take forever to get them right.
I did get a nice graph with colour if I use ggplot2. Note I changed the bs$log_t variable name to logt as ggplot did not like the bs$ library(ggplot2) names(bs_mean) <- c("month", "logt") p <- ggplot(bs_mean, aes(month, logt)) p <- p + geom_point(colour = "red") p John Kane Kingston ON Canada > -----Original Message----- > From: da...@catwhisker.org > Sent: Fri, 3 Feb 2012 14:28:35 -0800 > To: r-help@r-project.org > Subject: [R] Having trouble controlling plot() output (e.g., color) > > I expect that there's something glaringly obvious that I'm overlooking, > as I'm justr getting back involved in using R after a several-month > hiatus (from R). So I welcome clues. > > When I invoke plot(), merely specifying a data.frame with 2 columns, > specify the plot type ("type") of "p" ("points"), and that I want the > point to be green ('col = "green"'), sometimes I get the expected > result; other times I get horizontal black lines instead -- and he > behavior appears to be consistent for a given data.frame, but I don't > seem to be able to predict (for a new data.frame) which behavior I'll > get ... and I'm beginning to wonder about what's left of my sanity. :-} > >> R.Version() > $platform > [1] "i386-portbld-freebsd8.2" > > $arch > [1] "i386" > > $os > [1] "freebsd8.2" > > $system > [1] "i386, freebsd8.2" > > $status > [1] "" > > $major > [1] "2" > > $minor > [1] "14.1" > > $year > [1] "2011" > > $month > [1] "12" > > $day > [1] "22" > > $`svn rev` > [1] "57956" > > $language > [1] "R" > > $version.string > [1] "R version 2.14.1 (2011-12-22)" > >> dump("foo", file = "") > foo <- > structure(list(X1.5 = 1:5, X6.10 = 6:10), .Names = c("X1.5", > "X6.10"), row.names = c(NA, -5L), class = "data.frame") >> dump("bs_mean", file = "") > bs_mean <- > structure(list(month = structure(1:13, .Label = c("2011_01", > "2011_02", "2011_03", "2011_04", "2011_05", "2011_06", "2011_07", > "2011_08", "2011_09", "2011_10", "2011_11", "2011_12", "2012_01" > ), class = "factor"), `bs$log_t` = c(1.2026062533015, 1.27747221429551, > 1.30908704746547, 1.35386015390552, 1.36891795176966, 1.50313159806506, > 1.41951401509, 1.25753555559904, 1.21365151487245, 1.33079015825995, > 1.50334927085608, 1.39072924382553, 1.44966367892355)), .Names = > c("month", > "bs$log_t"), row.names = c(NA, -13L), class = "data.frame") >> attributes(foo) > $names > [1] "X1.5" "X6.10" > > $row.names > [1] 1 2 3 4 5 > > $class > [1] "data.frame" > >> attributes(bs_mean) > $names > [1] "month" "bs$log_t" > > $row.names > [1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 > > $class > [1] "data.frame" > >> plot( bs_mean, type = "p", col = "green" ) >> plot( foo, type = "p", col = "green" ) > > > The first plot() invocation -- the one that has the data I actually > care about, of course -- displays a set of 13 horizontal bars, each > of which appears to be black. [I actually *like* the horizontal > bars; I'd like to be able to control the color, though.] > > The second invocation draws a set of 5 green "points" (as I would > expect). > > How may I plot "bs_mean" in a non-black color? > > Thanks. > > Peace, > david > -- > David H. Wolfskill da...@catwhisker.org > Depriving a girl or boy of an opportunity for education is evil. > > See http://www.catwhisker.org/~david/publickey.gpg for my public key. ____________________________________________________________ Send any screenshot to your friends in seconds... Works in all emails, instant messengers, blogs, forums and social networks. TRY IM TOOLPACK at http://www.imtoolpack.com/default.aspx?rc=if2 for FREE ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.