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chron prefab for plotting date- and time-oriented data

chron is a prefab for plotting chronological data. Data may be expressed as dates, times, or a combination of date and time called datetime. chron can produce bar or line plots (1 to 4 bar sets or lines). It can also tabulate by week, month, day, hour, etc. (see the "tab" parameter). Time is shown along the X axis. The data file must be presorted into chronological order.

View some examples

Parameters

Prefab parameter name	Data type	Default	Description	Examples (ignore line wrapping)
Standard parameters			Any of the standard prefab parameters may be used. You must specify data (the name of the input data file). X axis stub format, increment, and range should use reasonable defaults automatically (versions 2.31+); if desired you can override the defaults by specifying xstubfmt, xinc, or xnearest explicitly.
x	data field	must be specified	Identifies the data field which contains dates, times, or datetimes.	x=2 x=tdate
y y2 y3 y4	data field	y must be specified (except when tabulating)	Identifies the data field(s) that contain values to plot. If you're not tabulating (see below), y, y2, y3, and y4 are available to produce one, two, three, or four curves or bar sets, respectively, and all values must be numeric. If you are tabulating only one y is available, and it can contain alpha or numeric data.	y=3 y=bp1 y2=bp2 y3=baseline
datefmt	a date format	must be specified,unless plotting time values only.	Specifies the date notation present in the x field of your data. If plotting datetime values, specify only the date portion.	datefmt=dd-mmm-yyyy
err err2 err3 err4	data field		Identifies the data field(s) that contain numeric error amounts, such as standard deviations, for the error bars. err2, err3, and err4 are available for producing error bars on additional curves or bar sets.	err=5
errcolor	color		Color for the error bars.	errcolor=x808080
mode	bars or line	bars	Type of plot to render.	type=line
unittype	date or time or datetime	date	Specifies the type of chronological scaling, and should be the same as the datatype of your x field. Datetime with windowing specs can also be used here.	unittype=datetime
autoyears automonths autodays	yes or format		These may be used to automatically mark year, month, or day boundaries along the X axis. For example, if your X axis increment is months, you can use autoyears=yes to display the year below each year transition. You can specify yes or an appropriate display format. More information. Note: The old name for autoyears is xyears.	autoyears=yes automonths=Mmm
omitweekends	yes or no	no	If yes, allows the graph to be drawn such that Friday is followed immediately by Monday. Any data points falling on a Saturday or Sunday are silently adjusted to the nearest weekday.	omitweekends=yes
tab	One of: hour day week month quarter-year year		If specified, data will be tabulated on week, month, etc. For example, if your data has a number of entries for June 10, 2003 you can use this to plot one bar showing the number of entries for that date. If a y data field is being used, the y values will be summated. If no y data field has been specified, instances (rows) will be counted. tab is incompatible with y2 .. 4 and ptselect. Note: tab (as well as related parameters x, y, datefmt) cannot be #set from within the data file.	tab=week
tabmode	mid or first	mid	This parameter is used with tab and influences how date adjustment will be done. mid causes dates/times to be adjusted to the middle of the interval. first causes dates/times to be adjusted to the beginning of the interval.	tabmode=first
timefld	data field		Specifies a data field that holds time values. Normally when plotting datetimes the date and time are combined into one data field, separated by a period (.), but you can use timefld to allow the date and the time to be in two separate fields. This parameter is available only with tab.	timefld=ptime
xnearest	One of: hour day month quarter year		This may be used to force X axis min and max to be located on round value boundaries. For example, nearest=month would cause X min and max to be located at month boundaries. Old name: nearest.	xnearest=month
xmargin	amount		When you are doing bars, chron may pad the X axis min and max. For example if your data are datetime and you are doing bars, it will add an extra day on either end. Sometimes this is what is desired, but if not, you can use xmargin=0 to suppress this. You can also use this to add more padding at X axis min and max. amount is in days for date and datetime, and minutes for time.	xmargin=0
curve	yes or linedetails		Causes a moving average curve to be generating using the first set of data points (only). curve should not be confused with the lines being drawn with mode=line.. it is a completely separate operation.	curve=" color=blue width=0.5"
order	integer	5	This is an additional parameter that may be used to control the number of points considered when computing the moving average curve (higher value = smoother curve).	order=10

Parameters available when mode=bars

If more than one bar set is being rendered, bars will be clustered unless the stack parameter is specified.

Prefab parameter name	Data type	Default	Description	Examples (ignore line wrapping)
color color2 color3 color4	color	gray	Specify bar color(s).	color=dullyellow
barwidth	width or line	based on data, single bars	Controls the width of bars. width is a value in inches or cm. Or, line may be specified to render very thin bars. Note: generally the default bar width is acceptable for single bars, but for clusters it usually must be specified explicitly.	barwidth=0.2 barwidth=line
stack	yes or no	no	If yes, show stacked bars instead of bar clusters. Note: ptselect cannot be used with stacked bars.	stack=yes
outline	yes or linedetails		Outline the bars.	"outline= color=pink"
crossover	value in Y		This may be specified as the value in Y where bars begin to point downward instead of upward. For instance, crossover=0 is often useful when dealing with financial income, to show loss using downward bars.	crossover=0

Parameters available when mode=line

Prefab parameter name	Data type	Default	Description	Examples (ignore line wrapping)
linedet linedet2 linedet3 linedet4	linedetails	width=1 color=black	Controls the appearance of rendered line(s). If doing multiple lines you can specify linedet2 without having to specify linedet (etc.)	"linedet= color=red width=0.5"
fill fill2 fill3 fill4	color		If specified, the area under the line will be filled with the specified color. If doing multiple lines you can specify fill2 without having to specify fill (etc.)	fill=dullyellow
pointsym pointsym2 pointsym3 pointsym4	symboldetails | default		If specified, data points will be added to line(s). You can specify "default" which will use a pre-selected data point symbol for up to 4 lines.	fill=dullyellow
step	yes or no	no	Render a stairstep line. Applies to all lines.	step=yes
gapmissing	yes or small		If yes, unplottable data values will trigger a gap to occur in the line (normally the line connects plottable points without a gap). small is the same as yes except that it leaves a small overhang. Applies to all lines. Note that this doesn't detect data points that are simply omitted; a non-plottable value (such as a NA missing data code) must be present in the data.	gapmissing=small
lineclip	yes or no	no	If yes, the lineplot will be clipped to the plotting area.	lineclip=yes