Use expression with a variable r

r expression
dayne picture dayne · Feb 25, 2013 · Viewed 27k times · Source

I am trying to label a plot with the following label:

"Some Assay EC50 (uM)" where the "u" is a micro symbol.

I currently have:

assay <- "Some Assay"
plot(0,xlab=expression(paste(assay," AC50 (",mu,"M)",sep="")))

But that gives: "assay EC50 (uM)" rather than the desired "Some Assay EC50 (uM)".

Suggestions? Thanks.

I also tried:

paste(assay,expression(paste(" AC50 (",mu,"M)",sep="")),sep="")

Answer

Gavin Simpson picture Gavin Simpson · Feb 25, 2013

You want a combination of bquote() and a bit of plotmath fu:

assay <- "Some Assay"
xlab <- bquote(.(assay) ~ AC50 ~ (mu*M))
plot(0, xlab = xlab)

The ~ is a spacing operator and * means juxtapose the contents to the left and right of the operator. In bquote(), anything wrapped in .( ) will be looked up and replaced with the value of the named object; so .(assay) will be replaced in the expression with Some Assay.

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