Repeat a View

The repeat operator is part of Vega-Lite’s view composition. It provides a shortcut that creates a view for each entry in an array of fields. This operator generates multiple plots like facet. However, unlike facet it allows full replication of a data set in each view.

Documentation Overview

• Documentation Overview
• Repeat Operator
• Row/Column Repeat Mapping
• Examples
  • Repeated Line Charts
  • Repeated Histogram (Wrapped)
  • Scatterplot Matrix (SPLOM)
• Resolve
• Repeat Configuration

Repeat Operator

To repeat a view, define what fields should be used for each entry. Then define the repeated view in spec with a reference to a repeated field ({"repeat": ...}).

{
  "repeat": {
    ... // Repeat definition
  },
  "spec": ... // Specification
}

In addition to common properties of a view specification, a repeat specification has the following properties:

Row/Column Repeat Mapping

The repeat property can be an object with two optional properties ("row" and "column"), which define the list of fields that should be repeated into a row or column.

Examples

Repeated Line Charts

For instance, you can use this operator to quickly create an overview over the trends in multiple variables.

Note how the field for the y channel refers to a repeated field.

"y": {
  "field": {"repeat": "repeat"}
  ...
},

Repeated Histogram (Wrapped)

Scatterplot Matrix (SPLOM)

Repeat can be used to create a scatterplot matrix (SPLOM), where each cell shows a different 2D projection of the same data table. Here, we define both row and column.

You can also check the interactive SPLOM example.

Resolve

The default resolutions for repeat are independent scales and axes for position channels and shared scales and legends for all other channels. Currently, Vega-Lite does not support shared axes for repeated views.

Repeat Configuration

// Top-level View Specification
{
  ...,
  "config": { // Configuration Object

    "repeat": { // - Repeat Configuration
      "spacing": ...,
      "columns": ...,
    },
    ...
  }
}

The repeat configuration supports the following properties: