Allan Reese
> On Wed, 10 Dec 2003, Nick Cox wrote:
> > Once you start changing the design by introducing
> > options to fix things in absolute coordinates
> > as well, it's my guess that's way beyond "not
> > difficult"; it's out of the question in terms
> > of the resulting complexities for programmers,
> > and ultimately for users.
>
> Anything that is logical can be programmed. Whenever
> anyone tells you
> that something "cannot be done because the computer doesn't
> allow it",
> it is a fudge and a cop-out. All I asked for is the
> ability to fix the
> width of the inner graph region instead of it being
> calculated internally.
And that ability is, if possible, certainly desirable.
I don't think I've ever used such an expression ("cannot
be done...").
The issue is not what's possible in principle, but what's
practicable, bearing in mind, among other things, the
complexity of the
resulting syntax. (The syntax for the new graphics
is already fairly complicated, to say the least.)
StataCorp may want to comment.
>
> Since the question of when to use loops came up recently, here is an
> example of a technique that may be widely useful for
> building overlaid
> graphs. The code that precedes has generated an indefinite
> number of
> variates defining lines for groups of points: _l1, _l2 etc.
> Groups are
> identified by a factor, and while the x values will be
> ascending within
> each group there is no requirement for the start of value
> of the next
> group to be smaller, so connect(L) will not work. The
> following code
> generates a command line by appending a line plot for each
> group. Then
> the macro is executed.
>
> * Build and execute graph command ... as a very long macro text!
> loc colours="black black blue blue dkorange dkorange /*
> */ magenta magenta emerald emerald"
> * Here's the point plot ...
> loc gr "scatter `y' `x', yti("`y'")"
> forvalues i = 1 / `maxgrp' {
> loc gr ///
> "`gr'||line _l* `x' if `by'==`i', clc(`colours') legend(off)"
> }
> `gr' // execute macro command
>
> Comments:
>
> (1) I hve been unable to find out the maximum length for a
> macro string,
> but some very silly examples (too many groups) appear to
> work. The actual
> code has rather more options for each graph
. help limits
or [R] limits are sources of guidance on limits.
In this general terrain, another method
is to -separate- the variables and call -scatter-
(or whatever) in a single call.
separate y, by(byvar)
scatter `r(varlist)' x
If you have a long text string, don't use =.
There is no need to evaluate a string like
"black black blue blue dkorange dkorange magenta
magenta emerald emerald" and you can get longer
strings by avoiding evaluation.
Nick
[email protected]
*
* For searches and help try:
* http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/findit.html
* http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
* http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
