What’s New in SAS/GRAPH 9.2 Graph Template Language

Overview

The third maintenance release of the SAS/GRAPH Graph Template Language provides the DISCRETEOFFSET= option, which enables you to offset the positions of bars, plot markers, and other data representations on a discrete axis.

Support for Offsets on Discrete Axes

The new DISCRETEOFFSET= option enables you to specify an offset for the data that are represented on a discrete axis. The offset is useful for graphing multiple response variables on a common axis in the graph.

For example, if multiple BARCHART statements with different response variables are specified within an overlay-type layout, the bars for matching category values are, by default, centered on the midpoint axis values. Thus, the bars from the multiple bar charts are superimposed on one another. By setting a different offset value on each BARCHART statement, you can display the bars for common response values side by side.

Similarly, within an overlay-type layout, the plot markers for a scatter plot are, by default, centered on the discrete X values, or discrete Y values, or both. If a SCATTERPLOT statement and other plots are used together on a discrete axis, the scatter markers might be superimposed over other graph data. By setting a different offset on each plot statement, you can offset the data on the common axis. This prevents the scatter markers from being superimposed over the other graph data.

The DISCRETEOFFSET= option is available on the following plot statements:

BARCHART statement
BARCHARTPARM statement
BOXPLOT statement
BOXPLOTPARM statement
DROPLINE statement
REFERENCELINE statement
SCATTERPLOT statement
SERIESPLOT statement
STEPPLOT statement