Create line graph with multiple lines in R

Question

I'd like to visualise census data in order to compare data for each race throughout time.

Years 1950-2010 (every 10 years) are the rows in my data frame, and race is the column. The percentage of that race in a given year is shown by the data at the cross section.

I want the years on the x axis and the race on the y axis in my line graph. So, with my five "race" factors, I'd have five different coloured lines shown on the same graph.

I've tried watching videos and looking around, but nothing I've found appears to operate the way I want it to.

Edit: Instead of using a dataframe, I refactored the code and created my own.

Answer 1

You must first restructure your dataset into a longer format using tools like tidyr's pivot longer function. Your data ought to seem like this in the end.

The first line will convert all of your data into a numerical format that is much more suitable for plotting as your data are in factor format (with the exception of the Year column).

library(dplyr)\slibrary(tidyr)

Reshaped DF - df percent > percent pivot longer(-Year, names to = "Races", values to = "values")% > percent mutate at(vars(ends with(".pct")), as.numeric(as.character(.))%)%

# A tibble: values for 35 x 3 Year Races

1950 White.pct = 98.3; 1950 BlackOrAA.pct = 1.3; 1950 Hispanic.pct = 0; 1950 AsianOrPI.pct = 0; 1950 Other.pct = 1.3; 1960 White.pct = 98; 1950 Other.pct = 1.3 1960 Hispanic.pct 0 9 1960 BlackOrAA.pct 1.2 8 with 25 additional rows 1960 AsianOrPI.pct 0 10 1960 Other.pct 1.2 #
You can then use ggplot2