The R Project SVN R

% File src/library/graphics/man/lines.Rd
% Part of the R package, http://www.R-project.org
% Copyright 1995-2007 R Core Development Team
% Distributed under GPL 2 or later

\name{lines}
\alias{lines}
\alias{lines.default}
\title{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, \dots)

\method{lines}{default}(x, y = NULL, type = "l", \dots)
}
\arguments{
  \item{x, y}{coordinate vectors of points to join.}
  \item{type}{character indicating the type of plotting; actually any of
    the \code{type}s as in \code{\link{plot.default}}.}
  \item{\dots}{Further graphical parameters (see \code{\link{par}}) may
    also be supplied as arguments, particularly, line type, \code{lty},
    line width, \code{lwd}, color, \code{col} and for \code{type = "b"},
    \code{pch}.  Also the line characteristics \code{lend}, \code{ljoin}
    and \code{lmitre}.}
}
\details{
  The coordinates can be passed in a plotting structure
  (a list with \code{x} and \code{y} components), a two-column matrix, a
  time series, \dots.  See \code{\link{xy.coords}}.  If supplied
  separately, they must be of the same length.

  The coordinates can contain \code{NA} values. If a point contains
  \code{NA} in either its \code{x} or \code{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 \code{type = "h"}, \code{col} can be a vector and will be recycled
  as needed.

  \code{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)
  \emph{The New S Language}.
  Wadsworth & Brooks/Cole.
}
\seealso{
  \code{\link{points}}, particularly for \code{type \%in\% c("p","b","o")},
  \code{\link{plot}},
  and the workhorse function \code{\link{plot.xy}}.

  \code{\link{abline}} for drawing (single) straight lines.

  \code{\link{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))
}
\keyword{aplot}