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Asked: 2026-06-18T06:56:29+00:00

I am using an orphaned R library ( wmtsa ). One of it’s functions

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I am using an orphaned R library (wmtsa). One of it’s functions creates a continuous wavelet transform (wavCWT()) that returns a wavelet object and it can be plotted by calling the traditional plot() function. Unfortunately, the way the function is written does not allow me to change some typical plot parameters. In particular, I cannot set axes=F and I am forced to have the axes plotted all the time. This is not helpful as I want to add extra layers to my device and the axes are different and it they are offset.

Is there a way to pass the argument to the method that is calling the plot() function?

If this is not possible I am afraid I will have to modify the source code. If this is the case, where should I look in order to modify the methods of this kind of object?

I found the source of the methods but my hacking skills are limited and I am a bit lost.

Example:

 library(wmtsa)   # assuming you have installed the package wmtsa
 wavCWT(sin(rnorm(1000)))
 plot(W, power.stretch=0.5)

produces this plot:

enter image description here

but if I try to remove axes with axes=F I get the following message:

plot(W, power.stretch=0.5, axes=F)
Error in plot.default(NA, NA, xlim = xlim, ylim = ylim, type = "n", xaxs = xaxs,  : 
formal argument "axes" matched by multiple actual arguments
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    You do need to change the source, but only very slightly. On line 269-270 of wav_xform.R, inside the plot.wavCMT function change the line:

    image(data$x, data$y, imageScale(data$z, power.stretch=power.stretch), ...,
  xlab=xlab, ylab=ylab, axes=TRUE)

    to

    image(data$x, data$y, imageScale(data$z, power.stretch=power.stretch), ...,
  xlab=xlab, ylab=ylab)

    The reason is that ellipsis (...)- that means “take any extra arguments to the plot function and pass them to the image function”. However, the original code had axes=TRUE there too, which means that if you try and pass axes=FALSE you’ll get a formal argument "axes" matched by multiple actual arguments error.

    Then (once you reinstall), the following works to get rid of the axes:

    library(wmtsa)
sunspots.cwt <- wavCWT(sunspots)
plot(sunspots.cwt)  # has axes
plot(sunspots.cwt, axes=FALSE)  # does *not* have axes

    Also note that you can change other common plot parameters, thanks to that ellipsis! (That’s true even if you never modify the source). For example:

    plot(sunspots.cwt, main="My great wavelet plot")  # change title
plot(sunspots.cwt, xlim=c(1750, 1850))  # change x axis range
plot(sunspots.cwt, ylim=c(0, 2))  # change y axis range
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