Rotating x axis labels in R for barplot

Question

I am trying to get the x axis labels to be rotated 45 degrees on a barplot with no luck. This is the code I have below:

barplot(((data1[,1] - average)/averag         


        

Answer 1

Andre Silva's answer works great for me, with one caveat in the "barplot" line:

barplot(mtcars$qsec, col="grey50", 
    main="",
    ylab="mtcars - qsec", ylim=c(0,5+max(mtcars$qsec)),
    xlab = "",
    xaxt = "n", 
    space=1)

Notice the "xaxt" argument. Without it, the labels are drawn twice, the first time without the 60 degree rotation.

Answer 2

Rotate the x axis labels with angle equal or smaller than 90 degrees using base graphics. Code adapted from the R FAQ:

par(mar = c(7, 4, 2, 2) + 0.2) #add room for the rotated labels

#use mtcars dataset to produce a barplot with qsec colum information
mtcars = mtcars[with(mtcars, order(-qsec)), ] #order mtcars data set by column "qsec"

end_point = 0.5 + nrow(mtcars) + nrow(mtcars) - 1 #this is the line which does the trick (together with barplot "space = 1" parameter)

barplot(mtcars$qsec, col = "grey50", 
        main = "",
        ylab = "mtcars - qsec", ylim = c(0,5 + max(mtcars$qsec)),
        xlab = "",
        space = 1)
#rotate 60 degrees (srt = 60)
text(seq(1.5, end_point, by = 2), par("usr")[3]-0.25, 
     srt = 60, adj = 1, xpd = TRUE,
     labels = paste(rownames(mtcars)), cex = 0.65)