# Reproduce boxplot with only data points at given quantiles

It is trivial to create a boxplot in R with a full dataset. However, with limited access to the whole dataset, I just have 5 data point at min, 25%, 50% ,75%, and max. So is there any easy way to reproduce the boxplot with only these 5 values?

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What about boxplot(your.five.data.points)? –  Nick Stauner Apr 1 at 23:44

It's still pretty trivial. You can't reproduce the whiskers of a default boxplot effectively if the minimum and maximum values exceed Tukey's fences, but the box itself should remain unaltered. E.g., with x=rnorm(9999), compare boxplot(x) vs. boxplot(quantile(x)):
$\leftarrow$ full dataset vs. your five values $\rightarrow$
boxplot(fivenum(x)) is a lot shorter than boxplot(c(min(x),quantile(x,c(.25,.5,.75)),max(x))) (though if the quartiles don't match the definition of hinge in fivenum that might not be suitable) –  Glen_b Apr 2 at 5:20
See the edit to my comment; your original has the advantage of being able to use any of the 9 definitions of quantiles. Then again, boxplot(quantile(x)) would work in place of fivenum and probably matches the original post better; I'm just used to associating boxplots with fivenum. –  Glen_b Apr 2 at 5:25