# Creating boxplot with or without notch (Plots, StatsPlots)

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/creating-boxplot-with-or-without-notch-plots-statsplots/20383>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Tags:** plotting\
**Created:** [February 2, 2019, 5:18pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/creating-boxplot-with-or-without-notch-plots-statsplots/20383 "2019-02-02T17:18:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 10\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![orhan\_abar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e5b9ba/32.png) [@orhan\_abar](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/orhan_abar)\
**Post date:** [February 2, 2019, 5:18pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/creating-boxplot-with-or-without-notch-plots-statsplots/20383/1 "2019-02-02T17:18:05Z")

</div>

I am trying to create a plot which contains 3 boxplots.  
First one has 21 data point, second one has 26 and third one has 21 data points.  
I can create each one seperately using StatsPlots library. When I try to combine them I am getting error.  
Here is the data and output I got:

```julia
using StatsPlots
a = rand(21)*600
b = rand(26)*600
c = rand(21)*600
bp1 = boxplot(["Tier 1"],a,leg=false;notch=true,ylim=(0,600))
bp2 = boxplot(["Tier 2"],b,leg=false;notch=true,ylim=(0,600))
bp3 = boxplot(["Tier 3"],c,leg=false;notch=true,ylim=(0,600))
StatsPlots.plot(bp1, bp2, bp3)

```

![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/3/d/3d693a43cb98da6211d121595d031359bc2e8868.png)

When I run:

```julia
boxplot(["Tier 1"],a,leg=false;notch=true,ylim=(0,600))
boxplot!(["Tier 2"],b,leg=false;notch=true,ylim=(0,600))
boxplot!(["Tier 3"],c,leg=false;notch=true,ylim=(0,600))

```

I am getting this error:  
BoundsError: attempt to access 1-element Array{Float64,1} at index [2]

Stacktrace:  
[1] getindex(::Array{Float64,1}, ::Int64) at ./array.jl:731  
[2] macro expansion at /home/ec2-user/.julia/packages/StatsPlots/HQ166/src/boxplot.jl:51 [inlined]  
[3] apply\_recipe(::Dict{Symbol,Any}, ::Type{Val{:boxplot}}, ::Array{String,1}, ::Array{Float64,1}, ::Nothing) at /home/ec2-user/.julia/packages/RecipesBase/Uz5AO/src/RecipesBase.jl:275  
[4] \_process\_seriesrecipe(::Plots.Plot{Plots.GRBackend}, ::Dict{Symbol,Any}) at /home/ec2-user/.julia/packages/Plots/qh1wV/src/pipeline.jl:408  
[5] macro expansion at ./logging.jl:318 [inlined]  
[6] \_plot!(::Plots.Plot{Plots.GRBackend}, ::Dict{Symbol,Any}, ::Tuple{Array{String,1},Array{Float64,1}}) at /home/ec2-user/.julia/packages/Plots/qh1wV/src/plot.jl:171  
[7] #plot!#137(::Base.Iterators.Pairs{Symbol,Any,NTuple{4,Symbol},NamedTuple{(:leg, :notch, :ylim, :seriestype),Tuple{Bool,Bool,Tuple{Int64,Int64},Symbol}}}, ::Function, ::Plots.Plot{Plots.GRBackend}, ::Array{String,1}, ::Vararg{Any,N} where N) at /home/ec2-user/.julia/packages/Plots/qh1wV/src/plot.jl:158  
[8] (::getfield(RecipesBase, Symbol(“#kw##plot!”)))(::NamedTuple{(:leg, :notch, :ylim, :seriestype),Tuple{Bool,Bool,Tuple{Int64,Int64},Symbol}}, ::typeof(plot!), ::Plots.Plot{Plots.GRBackend}, ::Array{String,1}, ::Vararg{Any,N} where N) at ./none:0  
[9] #plot!#136(::Base.Iterators.Pairs{Symbol,Any,NTuple{4,Symbol},NamedTuple{(:leg, :notch, :ylim, :seriestype),Tuple{Bool,Bool,Tuple{Int64,Int64},Symbol}}}, ::Function, ::Array{String,1}, ::Vararg{Any,N} where N) at /home/ec2-user/.julia/packages/Plots/qh1wV/src/plot.jl:150  
[10] (::getfield(RecipesBase, Symbol(“#kw##plot!”)))(::NamedTuple{(:leg, :notch, :ylim, :seriestype),Tuple{Bool,Bool,Tuple{Int64,Int64},Symbol}}, ::typeof(plot!), ::Array{String,1}, ::Array{Float64,1}) at ./none:0  
[11] #boxplot!#404(::Base.Iterators.Pairs{Symbol,Any,Tuple{Symbol,Symbol,Symbol},NamedTuple{(:leg, :notch, :ylim),Tuple{Bool,Bool,Tuple{Int64,Int64}}}}, ::Function, ::Array{String,1}, ::Vararg{Any,N} where N) at /home/ec2-user/.julia/packages/RecipesBase/Uz5AO/src/RecipesBase.jl:369  
[12] (::getfield(Plots, Symbol(“#kw##boxplot!”)))(::NamedTuple{(:leg, :notch, :ylim),Tuple{Bool,Bool,Tuple{Int64,Int64}}}, ::typeof(boxplot!), ::Array{String,1}, ::Vararg{Any,N} where N) at ./none:0  
[13] top-level scope at In[10]:2

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![orhan\_abar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e5b9ba/32.png) [@orhan\_abar](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/orhan_abar)\
**Post date:** [February 2, 2019, 5:19pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/creating-boxplot-with-or-without-notch-plots-statsplots/20383/2 "2019-02-02T17:19:31Z")

</div>

One more issue is that altough I am using StatsPlots, I am getting this warning:

```julia
┌ Warning: seriestype boxplot has been moved to StatPlots. To use: `Pkg.add("StatPlots"); using StatPlots`
└ @ Plots /home/ec2-user/.julia/packages/Plots/qh1wV/src/args.jl:1054
┌ Warning: seriestype boxplot has been moved to StatPlots. To use: `Pkg.add("StatPlots"); using StatPlots`
└ @ Plots /home/ec2-user/.julia/packages/Plots/qh1wV/src/args.jl:1054
┌ Warning: seriestype boxplot has been moved to StatPlots. To use: `Pkg.add("StatPlots"); using StatPlots`
└ @ Plots /home/ec2-user/.julia/packages/Plots/qh1wV/src/args.jl:1054
┌ Warning: seriestype boxplot has been moved to StatPlots. To use: `Pkg.add("StatPlots"); using StatPlots`
└ @ Plots /home/ec2-user/.julia/packages/Plots/qh1wV/src/args.jl:1054

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mkborregaard](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mkborregaard/32/556_2.png) [@mkborregaard](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mkborregaard)\
**Post date:** [February 2, 2019, 5:25pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/creating-boxplot-with-or-without-notch-plots-statsplots/20383/3 "2019-02-02T17:25:57Z")

</div>

The first issue is [Boxplot and violin broken · Issue #198 · JuliaPlots/StatsPlots.jl · GitHub](https://github.com/JuliaPlots/StatsPlots.jl/issues/198) - essentially the recipe broke when we tried to add some nice new functionality.  
The other is your Plots version being out of date, most likely.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![orhan\_abar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e5b9ba/32.png) [@orhan\_abar](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/orhan_abar)\
**Post date:** [February 2, 2019, 5:51pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/creating-boxplot-with-or-without-notch-plots-statsplots/20383/4 "2019-02-02T17:51:57Z")

</div>

I have updated Plots and now even this is not working.  
`StatsPlots.plot(bp1, bp2, bp3)`

```julia
UndefVarError: warn not defined

Stacktrace:
 [1] macro expansion at /home/ec2-user/.julia/packages/StatsPlots/HQ166/src/boxplot.jl:45 [inlined]
 [2] apply_recipe(::Dict{Symbol,Any}, ::Type{Val{:boxplot}}, ::Array{String,1}, ::Array{Float64,1}, ::Nothing) at /home/ec2-user/.julia/packages/RecipesBase/Uz5AO/src/RecipesBase.jl:275
 [3] _process_seriesrecipe(::Plots.Plot{Plots.GRBackend}, ::Dict{Symbol,Any}) at /home/ec2-user/.julia/packages/Plots/UQI78/src/pipeline.jl:408
 [4] macro expansion at ./logging.jl:318 [inlined]
 [5] _plot!(::Plots.Plot{Plots.GRBackend}, ::Dict{Symbol,Any}, ::Tuple{Array{String,1},Array{Float64,1}}) at /home/ec2-user/.julia/packages/Plots/UQI78/src/plot.jl:171
 [6] #plot#136(::Base.Iterators.Pairs{Symbol,Any,NTuple{4,Symbol},NamedTuple{(:leg, :notch, :ylim, :seriestype),Tuple{Bool,Bool,Tuple{Int64,Int64},Symbol}}}, ::Function, ::Array{String,1}, ::Vararg{Any,N} where N) at /home/ec2-user/.julia/packages/Plots/UQI78/src/plot.jl:57
 [7] (::getfield(RecipesBase, Symbol("#kw##plot")))(::NamedTuple{(:leg, :notch, :ylim, :seriestype),Tuple{Bool,Bool,Tuple{Int64,Int64},Symbol}}, ::typeof(plot), ::Array{String,1}, ::Array{Float64,1}) at ./none:0
 [8] #boxplot#412(::Base.Iterators.Pairs{Symbol,Any,Tuple{Symbol,Symbol,Symbol},NamedTuple{(:leg, :notch, :ylim),Tuple{Bool,Bool,Tuple{Int64,Int64}}}}, ::Function, ::Array{String,1}, ::Vararg{Any,N} where N) at /home/ec2-user/.julia/packages/RecipesBase/Uz5AO/src/RecipesBase.jl:368
 [9] (::getfield(Plots, Symbol("#kw##boxplot")))(::NamedTuple{(:leg, :notch, :ylim),Tuple{Bool,Bool,Tuple{Int64,Int64}}}, ::typeof(boxplot), ::Array{String,1}, ::Vararg{Any,N} where N) at ./none:0
 [10] top-level scope at In[11]:4

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![orhan\_abar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e5b9ba/32.png) [@orhan\_abar](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/orhan_abar)\
**Post date:** [February 2, 2019, 7:22pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/creating-boxplot-with-or-without-notch-plots-statsplots/20383/5 "2019-02-02T19:22:49Z")

</div>

Is there any other package I can use working with julia 1?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mattriks](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mattriks/32/351_2.png) [@Mattriks](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Mattriks)\
**Post date:** [February 2, 2019, 10:02pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/creating-boxplot-with-or-without-notch-plots-statsplots/20383/6 "2019-02-02T22:02:34Z")

</div>

[Gadfly](http://gadflyjl.org/dev/tutorial/) has non-notched [boxplots](http://gadflyjl.org/stable/gallery/geometries/#%5BGeom.boxplot%5D(@ref)-1), and works with Julia 1.x.

There is a PR to do [dodged boxplots](https://github.com/GiovineItalia/Gadfly.jl/pull/1246).

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mkborregaard](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mkborregaard/32/556_2.png) [@mkborregaard](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mkborregaard)\
**Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 11:17am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/creating-boxplot-with-or-without-notch-plots-statsplots/20383/7 "2019-02-03T11:17:51Z")

</div>

Hi, that `warn` thing is correctly a remnant from the 0.6 → 1.0 release on StatsPlots. I’ve fixed it on master, it’s caused by some irregularity in the code generating the notch size for your data (it’s simply that difference between the 3rd and 4th quartile is so small that there isn’t space to draw a regularly shaped notch. I’ll look at changing the default notch depth). But otherwise, StatsPlots and Plots have been working on 1.0 since 1 day after the 1.0 release.

What happened is that we added dodged (grouped) boxplots to the functionality, but it turns out it broke a rarely used syntax for non-grouped boxplots, which is the one you are using. The ideomatic boxplot syntax, which works and always have worked, is to use a long-format (tidy) format, just like in DataFrames:

```julia
tier = [repeat(["Tier 1"], 21); repeat(["Tier 2"], 26); repeat(["Tier 3"], 21)]
boxplot(tier, [a;b;c])

```

I’d expect Gadfly to expect you to use that syntax as well.

Still, sufficiently many appear to be using `wide` format plots to StatsPlots and experience errors, so that I’ve decided we need to remove the grouped boxplot functionality again, and look for a different implementation. So I’ve reverted that PR and pushed a new release (v0.10.1).

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![orhan\_abar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e5b9ba/32.png) [@orhan\_abar](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/orhan_abar)\
**Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 9:54pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/creating-boxplot-with-or-without-notch-plots-statsplots/20383/8 "2019-02-03T21:54:33Z")

</div>

Thank you, that’s what I was trying to do. It looks nice now.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![David\_Hughes](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/david_hughes/32/7219_2.png) [@David\_Hughes](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/David_Hughes)\
**Post date:** [February 25, 2019, 8:31am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/creating-boxplot-with-or-without-notch-plots-statsplots/20383/9 "2019-02-25T08:31:40Z")

</div>

@mkborregaard is this issue resolved in the current release of StatsPlots? I am trying to do the following and getting the attempt to access 1-element array error:

@df male\_df violin(:genotype,:age, side=:right, marker=(0.2, :blue, stroke(0)), label=“Male”) \<= works  
@df female\_df violin!(:genotype,:age, side=:left, marker=(0.2, :red, stroke(0)), label=“MFemale”) \<= fails

I saw that v0.10.2 was released with groupedviolin. How can I use this feature to achieve the above split violin plot?

Thank you!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![David\_Hughes](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/david_hughes/32/7219_2.png) [@David\_Hughes](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/David_Hughes)\
**Post date:** [February 25, 2019, 5:07pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/creating-boxplot-with-or-without-notch-plots-statsplots/20383/10 "2019-02-25T17:07:17Z")

</div>

@mkborregaard I updated to v0.10.2 again and the problem was resolved. I am now able to graph split violin charts. Thank you for an excellent charting package!