Re: st: number of dates in x axis

[Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com>]

There is relevant material at

Stata 7: How can I get "nice" date labels on a graph?

http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/graphics/nicedate.html

StataCorp have added this annotation:

"Note: This FAQ is relevant for users of releases prior to Stata 8.
For Stata 8 see update from 12 September 2003."

In fact the techniques there do remain useful for some problems.

Here's an example with different data. Here I decide that I want
labels every 2 months from 1 January 2002 to 1 January 2003. I loop
over the dates and put them in a bag, namely a local macro.

sysuse xtline1
xtset person day

forval i = 1(2)11 {
	local thisdate = mdy(`i', 1, 2002)
	local mydates `mydates' `thisdate'
}

local thisdate = mdy(1,1,2003)
local mydates `mydates' `thisdate'

xtline calories, overlay xlabel(`mydates', format(%d_m_Y) ang(v))

See also

SJ-7-4  gr0030  . Stata tip 55: Better axis labeling for time points/intervals
        . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  N. J. Cox
        Q4/07   SJ 7(4):590--592                                 (no commands)
        tip on labeling graphs for time points and time intervals


On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 4:45 AM, Maria Ana Vitorino
<vitorino@wharton.upenn.edu> wrote:

> I have the following data:
>
>
>    +------------------------+
>    | Person   Weight      Date    |
>    |------------------------|
>  1. |  Name1       50      17988  |
>  2. |  Name1       55      18110  |
>  3. |  Name1       50      18141  |
>  4. |  Name1       45      18171  |
>  5. |    ...        .      . |
>    |------------------------|
>  6. |  Name2       85      18110 |
>  7. |  Name2       88      18171 |
>  8. |  Name3       68      17988 |
>  9. |    ...        .                       . |
> 10. |     ..        .      .                 |
>    |------------------------|
> 11. |  NameN        .               . |
>    +------------------------+
>
> The labels for the date variables are the months' names (plus year) (e.g.
> "jan2006", "feb2007", etc)
>
> If I do something like:
>
> xtline Weight , overlay  i(Person) t(Date) xlab(, valuelabel)
>
> The month names show up on the xaxis BUT only every 6 months or so. How can
> I control the number of "ticks" (AND month names ) that show up on the
> x-axis? (suppose I want a tick every 2 months or even every month)
>

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