R: Add Connected Line Segments to a Plot

lines {graphics} | R Documentation

## Add Connected Line Segments to a Plot

### Description

A generic function taking coordinates given in various ways and joining the corresponding points with line segments.

### Usage

    lines(x, ...)

    ## Default S3 method:
    lines(x, y = NULL, type = "l", ...)

### Arguments

`x, y` | coordinate vectors of points to join.
`type` | character indicating the type of plotting; actually any of the `type`s as in `plot.default`.
`...` | Further graphical parameters (see `par`) may also be supplied as arguments, particularly, line type, `lty`, line width, `lwd`, color, `col` and for `type = "b"`, `pch`. Also the line characteristics `lend`, `ljoin` and `lmitre`.

### Details

The coordinates can be passed in a plotting structure (a list with `x` and `y` components), a two-column matrix, a time series, .... See `xy.coords`. If supplied separately, they must be of the same length.

The coordinates can contain `NA` values. If a point contains `NA` in either its `x` or `y` value, it is omitted from the plot, and lines are not drawn to or from such points. Thus missing values can be used to achieve breaks in lines.

For `type = "h"`, `col` can be a vector and will be recycled as needed.

`lwd` can be a vector: its first element will apply to lines but the whole vector to symbols (recycled as necessary).

### References

Becker, R. A., Chambers, J. M. and Wilks, A. R. (1988) The New S Language. Wadsworth & Brooks/Cole.

### See Also

`points`, particularly for `type %in% c("p","b","o")`, `plot`, and the workhorse function `plot.xy`.

`abline` for drawing (single) straight lines.

`par` for how to specify colors.

### Examples

    # draw a smooth line through a scatter plot
    plot(cars, main="Stopping Distance versus Speed")
    lines(stats::lowess(cars))

[Package graphics version 2.8.1 Index]