# How can I add categorical labels in a grouped bar plot?
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-can-i-add-categorical-labels-in-a-grouped-bar-plot/101494
**Category:** Visualization
**Tags:** plots, bar
**Created:** [July 11, 2023, 5:48pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-can-i-add-categorical-labels-in-a-grouped-bar-plot/101494 "2023-07-11T17:48:47Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@bertulli](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/bertulli)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2023, 5:48pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-can-i-add-categorical-labels-in-a-grouped-bar-plot/101494/1 "2023-07-11T17:48:47Z")
Hi all!
I’m trying to produce a grouped bar plot, as shown here:
```julia
julia> results
12-element Vector{NamedTuple{(:program, :mean, :stddev, :score), Tuple{String, Float64, Float64, Float64}}}:
(program = "fact_ite_#1", mean = 0.13363337671967476, stddev = 6.968981589411716e-5, score = 0.15668496559022413)
(program = "fact_ite_#10", mean = 0.10939051690866114, stddev = 6.729812577509443e-5, score = 0.16760302229708618)
(program = "fact_ite_#5", mean = 0.11185326308790666, stddev = 7.011063152232e-5, score = 0.16540776415667527)
(program = "fact_rec_#1", mean = 0.17970985593298908, stddev = 0.00010983213977160326, score = 0.10724581779034512)
(program = "fact_rec_#10", mean = 0.1297923567969918, stddev = 7.348603751738248e-5, score = 0.18260521370980007)
(program = "fact_rec_#5", mean = 0.129506049575937, stddev = 7.106046262476235e-5, score = 0.17652392213987142)
(program = "fib_ite_#1", mean = 0.14015194727028404, stddev = 7.504999155641526e-5, score = 0.14984037903988084)
(program = "fib_ite_#10", mean = 0.10199646836797639, stddev = 6.671603793583994e-5, score = 0.17997349855439737)
(program = "fib_ite_#5", mean = 0.10658693989996804, stddev = 6.676934103832938e-5, score = 0.17310482322253823)
(program = "fib_rec_#1", mean = 0.17802851040478251, stddev = 0.00010872560469872835, score = 0.10724581779034512)
(program = "fib_rec_#10", mean = 0.1211624343205089, stddev = 6.821730335085582e-5, score = 0.17307553078197996)
(program = "fib_rec_#5", mean = 0.12221186281160823, stddev = 6.598186810689261e-5, score = 0.16704219125922398)
julia> groupedbar([[t.mean for t in results] [t.score for t in results]])
```
giving
I’d like to add labels to both the legend (currently y1 and y2) and the x axis ticks (now numerical, but I’d like to put there **[t.program for t in results]**. I have seen [this SO answer](https://stackoverflow.com/a/75183751/17789881) by Bogumił, but it’s error prone and I suspect a better way has been implemented in the last 3 years.
Thanks!
---
### Author:  [@bertulli](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/bertulli)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2023, 6:07pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-can-i-add-categorical-labels-in-a-grouped-bar-plot/101494/2 "2023-07-11T18:07:28Z")
Update: for now I adapted Bogumił’s solution
```julia
groupedbar([[t.program, t.program] for t in results] |> flatten,
Iterators.flatten(zip([t.mean for t in results], [t.score for t in results])) |> collect,
group = repeat(["measured", "score"], length(results)),
xrotation = 90)
```
which gives
but again: isn’t there anything friendlier, and less error prone?
---
### Author:  [@bertulli](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/bertulli)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2023, 7:36pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-can-i-add-categorical-labels-in-a-grouped-bar-plot/101494/3 "2023-07-11T19:36:41Z")
Another possibility (inspired and adapted from [this example](https://goropikari.github.io/PlotsGallery.jl/src/stacked_bar_plot.html)) is to pass the keyword argument `xticks`, that may be a Tuple `(tickvalues, ticklabels)`. Passing the ticklabels works, but you also need to pass the number of ticks in tickvalues, such as
```julia
p = groupedbar([[t.mean for t in results] [t.score for t in results]],
xticks = (1:length([t.program for t in results]), [t.program for t in results]),
rotation = 90)
```
As a side note, the documentation may benefit from an update, because right now it only mentions that the attribute may be a tuple, but it otherwise never specifies what `ticklabels` does (although it’s perceivable).
---
### Author:  [@bertulli](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/bertulli)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2023, 8:02pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-can-i-add-categorical-labels-in-a-grouped-bar-plot/101494/4 "2023-07-11T20:02:22Z")
Ok I think I got it. You can leverage the usual pattern `plot(x, y)`, that is, in this case,
```julia
p = groupedbar([t.program for t in results],
[[t.mean for t in results] [t.score for t in results]],
label = ["means" "scores"],
xrotation = 90)
```
This works as intended, is a bit more secure (you just need to keep series and labels in the same order), and I think it’s the simpler idiom.