Re: st: Changing line color for more than 20 overlaid twoway line plots

[Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com>]

Thanks, but I suspect Vince's solution is faster. (In real life, Vince
is a skier, but I only walk.)

If you are doing this a lot, you could try a comparison.

Nick

On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 8:00 PM, Roth Florian <Florian.Roth@unilu.ch> wrote:

> Dear Nick,
>
> Thank you very much for answering so quickly. Your solution works great and since I am doing the line plot repeatedly I can see why blanking out the macro is so important.
>
> Best,
> Florian
> ________________________________________
> Von: owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu [owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu] im Auftrag von Nick Cox [njcoxstata@gmail.com]
> Gesendet: Donnerstag, 31. Januar 2013 18:12
> An: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
> Betreff: Re: st: Changing line color for more than 20 overlaid twoway line plots
>
> You raise a good point.
>
> My code should indeed work fine without explicit blanking out of the
> -local- macro. But I decided to include that line for a reason that I
> am now happy to explain.
>
> I find that most graphs require numerous minor tweaks. Or rather, my
> personal style is to get a very rough graph quickly and then make all
> sorts of minor adjustments. For anything complicated I move from the
> Command window to a do-file editor window and run revised code again
> and again. So, I wanted to underline that's a good style to blank out
> the macro before each new graph run.
>
> Otherwise the iterative
>
> local call `call' <new stuff>
>
> will mean that syntax just accumulates like dirt on a shoe.
>
> I also want to emphasise my personal opinion that working with
> undefined macros can be excellent style and in no sense an error.
>
> Nick
>
> On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 4:33 PM, Klaus Pforr <kpforr@googlemail.com> wrote:
>> <>
>>
>> Dear Nick,
>>
>> your solution reminds me of a discussion, which appeared recently in the
>> wishlist-posts:
>>
>> Should macros be declared or initialized, or otherwise cause an error. In
>> your code you used this line
>> ###
>> local call
>> ###
>> i.e. you initialized the macro to a zero content. The code should work
>> without this line, shouldn't it (yes, why not just try it, before you
>> ask...)? Is this just a better coding style?
>>
>> best wishes
>>
>> Klaus
>>
>> __________________________________
>>
>> Klaus Pforr
>> GESIS -- Leibniz Institut für Sozialwissenschaft
>> B2,1
>> Postfach 122155
>> D - 68072 Mannheim
>> Tel: +49 621 1246 298
>> Fax: +49 621 1246 100
>> E-Mail: klaus.pforr@gesis.org
>> __________________________________
>>
>>
>> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
>> Von: owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
>> [mailto:owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu] Im Auftrag von Nick Cox
>> Gesendet: Donnerstag, 31. Januar 2013 17:17
>> An: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
>> Betreff: Re: st: Changing line color for more than 20 overlaid twoway line
>> plots
>>
>> set obs 100
>> forval j = 1/22 {
>>         gen var`j' = rnormal()
>> }
>> gen year = 1900 + _n
>>
>> local call
>>
>> forval j = 2/22 {
>>    local call `call' line var`j' year, lc(gs10) || }
>>
>> twoway `call' || line var1 year, lc(black) legend(off)
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 4:06 PM, Roth Florian <Florian.Roth@unilu.ch> wrote:
>>> Dear All,
>>>
>>> I am trying to make a number of overlaid twoway line plots for a variable
>> (e.g. var1-var22) in a wide panel data set.
>>> For this I use the Stata command:
>>>
>>>         . twoway line var1-var22 Year
>>>
>>> Now, I would like to change the line color of var2-var22 to grey and the
>> line of var1 to black. So I use:
>>>
>>>         . twoway line var1-var22 Year, lcolor(black gs10 ...)
>>>
>>> I then get the error:
>>>
>>>         . p21(line(color(blue)) area(linestyle(color(blue)))):  too
>>> many arguments
>>>
>>> It seem as if lcolor does not allow for more than 20 arguments.
>>>
>>> Now, I could transform my data to long format and use - xtline - with
>>> options - overlay - and -plot#opts() - but then I would have to set
>>> the color for every line separately. This is not very practical because I
>> would like to make the same plot for many different data sets with a varying
>> number of line plots overlaid.
>>>
>>> I care only about visually distinguishing var1 from the rest. So maybe
>> there is a way to threat var2-var22 as a group.
>>> Or is there any other way to change the line color for a number of
>> overlaid line plots.

*
*   For searches and help try:
*   http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
*   http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/resources/statalist-faq/
*   http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/