topic Re: Format allignment in SAS Programming

Format allignment

Emma8 — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 20:14:08 GMT

Hi. I have the following format.
Proc format;
Value
1=“kids reference”
2=“teenagers 4(3-6)”
3=“older 16(10-18)”
;

How can I align by “-“ when print out. Thank you.

Re: Format allignment

Reeza — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 20:10:20 GMT

I don't think the forum is showing what you want. When typing out data that has a fixed structure try using a code block - 8th icon above the box you're typing in after hitting Reply (not Quick Reply).

Re: Format allignment

ballardw — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 20:21:37 GMT

Considering that the posted Proc Format code will not run because it using "pretty" quotes instead of programming quotes...

You might get close using code similar to:

Proc format;
Value
1="kids reference"
2="teenagers 4 (3-6)"
3="older    16(10-18)"
;

But anything displaying these values with a proportional font (any thing not monospace like Courier or SAS Monospace) will likely have some difference of appearance as different letters take up different amounts of space and multiple spaces are almost always going to be significantly reduced.

You really need to show how/where you expect to use that format as well.

As a quick reference to differences in propottional fonts.

iiiiiiiiiiiiiii

wwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Those two lines above both contain 15 characters. I will bet a short stack of $$ that the row of i values is lots shorter than the w values.

Re: Format allignment

Emma8 — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 20:39:46 GMT

I did as you did but when I proc sgplot that variable it’s would not line up nicely as formatted by the “-“

Re: Format allignment

Reeza — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 20:41:07 GMT

Can you provide a fully worked example then so we can test the code and solutions?

Re: Format allignment

Emma8 — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 21:04:33 GMT

Proc sgplot data...
Format Cc Ccformat.;
Run;

Re: Format allignment

ballardw — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 21:16:24 GMT

1) we need data

2) we need the entire code to recreate your graph which means:

3) we need to know the ODS destination and the ods style in affect when you generate the graph,

and possibly 4) ods graphics options set.

And then describe where this is appearing that it should "align". In a legend? Axis? Axistable?

Re: Format allignment

Emma8 — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 22:04:05 GMT

Thank you.

data test;
set sashelp.class;
if age in (12,13) then gr=1;
else if age =14 then gr=2;
else gr=3;
run;

proc sort data=test;
by gr;
run;
proc format;
value gr
1="kids Reference"
2="teenagers 9 (4-24)"
3="old 78 (32-189)"
;
proc template;
define style mystyle;
parent=styles.sasweb;
class graphwalls /
frameborder=on;
class graphbackground /
color=white;
end;
run;
ods graphics on / reset=all;
ods html style=mystyle path='.' file='newgraph.html';
ods graphics / reset=all width=6.5in height=4.5in border=off ;
legend1 label=none;
proc sgplot data=test DATTRMAP=attrmap1;
scatter x=weight y=Height /group=gr ;
keylegend / location=outside position=bottom NOBORDER down=4;
label gr='Age, years OR (95% CI)';
format gr gr.;
run;

Re: Format allignment

Reeza — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 22:11:45 GMT

This worked for me:

proc format;
value gr
1="kids Reference"
2="teenagers 9 (4-24)"
3="old          78(32-189)"
;

That being said, HTML alignment is a tricky thing. If you have a different resolution shown on screen or a different zoom level I'm not sure you can fix that component. You may want to consider using a annotate option to add that information into your graph instead if positioning is super important.

Re: Format allignment

Emma8 — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 22:18:56 GMT

Thanks.
But does not line up by “-“—does not produce what I wanted

Re: Format allignment

ballardw — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 22:19:42 GMT

Please post code into a code box opened with either the </> or "running man" icon as in my example. The message windows will reformat code removing blanks. So any attempt at alignment in your proc format code has been removed.

And since you referenced yet another data set, the DATTRMAP set, to duplicate your exact results we would need that as well.

Instructions here: https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Communities-Library/How-to-create-a-data-step-version-of-your-data-AKA-generate/ta-p/258712 will show how to turn an existing SAS data set into data step code that can be pasted into a forum code box using the </> icon or attached as text to show exactly what you have and that we can test code against.

Re: Format allignment

Reeza — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 22:22:48 GMT

That's exactly the point of my latter comment. It did for me, but won't for you and there's almost no way to guarantee that AFAIK unless you explicitly use annotate and control the location on the graphic. The way HTML renders by default makes this difficult. I'm not even sure annotate would get around this...you probably want to be generating SVG type graphics maybe instead? Or fixed images that can't scale?

Re: Format allignment

Emma8 — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 22:31:02 GMT

Don’t know. It generates html graph. How can I annotate?

Re: Format allignment

ballardw — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 22:36:25 GMT

@Emma8 wrote:
Thanks.
But does not line up by “-“—does not produce what I wanted

Did you read the bit I posted about the i's and w's? That is what is going on here. Spaces take up less area than most characters with a proportional font.

You can try adding more spaces in the format and things may get close but exact alignment is very likely a hit and miss(mostly) proposition. However as soon as you get this to sort of work with one set of options then the next time you do this and have a different measure and interval to display the trial and error begins again.

You might consider moving to GTL and have second graph that shows a forest plot of the OR and CI values (for the groups with such) under the scatterplot. Which may provide a better feel for the data than the few digits displayed.

Re: Format allignment

Emma8 — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 22:40:20 GMT

Thanks.
I just want to line up by this symbol “-“

Re: Format allignment

ChrisNZ — Wed, 24 Jun 2020 04:49:40 GMT

data test;
set sashelp.class;
if age in (12,13) then gr=1;
else if age =14 then gr=2;
else gr=3;
run;

proc sort data=test;
by gr;
run;
proc format;
value gr
1="kids Reference"
2="teenagers 9 (4-24)"
3="old 78 (32-189)"
;
proc template;
define style mystyle;
parent=styles.sasweb;
class graphwalls /
frameborder=on;
class graphbackground /
color=white;
end;
run;
ods graphics on / reset=all;
ods html style=mystyle path='.' file='newgraph.html';
ods graphics / reset=all width=6.5in height=4.5in border=off ;
legend1 label=none;
proc sgplot data=test DATTRMAP=attrmap1;
scatter x=weight y=Height /group=gr ;
keylegend / location=outside position=bottom NOBORDER down=4;
label gr='Age, years OR (95% CI)';
format gr gr.;
run;

The least you can do is:

1. Please format the code you post

2. Please run the code you post; This code results in an error.

Also:

3.The only way to align text in the manner you want is to use fixed-pitch font, as you have been told.

Do you understand this?

4. If you do, you can see why this aligns the legend as you request:

proc format;
  value gr
  1="kids Reference"
  2="teenagers 9 (4-24)"
  3="old 78     (32-189)"
;
...
proc sgplot data=TEST;
...
keylegend / ...  valueattrs=(family='Courier New') ;
...
run;

Here is the image (broken on some browsers it seems):