Formatting sgplot xaxis values?!

[Lacona]

Hey all,

I tried to format the values of the xaxis from numeric to scientific notation, because I thought that might be an explanation why the tick intervals of 5000 don't work. It would be sufficient to have just minor ticks without notation.
Every format I could find here ( https://documentation.sas.com/?docsetId=grstatproc&docsetVersion=9.4&docsetTarget=n0kdscfhkob956n196...) is without explanation and not working also.

Gross E8 worked previously with proc boxplot, but not with sgplot.

Where can I find explanation for the available formats and how can I change my xaxis values properly?

 
 1          OPTIONS NONOTES NOSTIMER NOSOURCE NOSYNTAXCHECK;
 72         
 73         proc sgplot data=income;
 74         histogram dollar;
 75         yaxis values=(0 to 62 by 5) grid;
 76         xaxis values=(0 to 105E3 by 5E3) valuesformat=best;
 77         run;
 
 ERROR 772-580: Syntaxfehler: Konstanter oder dynamischer Wert erwartet.
 WARNING: Object will not be saved.
 NOTE:  Verwendet wurde: PROZEDUR SGPLOT - (Gesamtverarbeitungszeit):
       real time           0.00 seconds
       cpu time            0.02 seconds
       
 NOTE: The SAS System stopped processing this step because of errors.
 78         
 79         OPTIONS NONOTES NOSTIMER NOSOURCE NOSYNTAXCHECK;

 Thank you so much!

[Reeza]

Try just applying a format to your dollar variable?

format variable best12.;

You always need a period after formats, it's missing in your code.

[Lacona]

proc sgplot data=income;
histogram dollar;
format dollar best12.;
yaxis values=(0 to 62 by 5) grid;
xaxis values=(0 to 105E3 by 5E3);
run;

I ran that without any changes in the xaxis.

Furthermore: my goal is it to have minor ticks on the xaxis, how do I do that?

[Reeza]

BEST isn't the format you want though, don't you want Exponential? You aren't using an exponential format. I just put BEST because it's what's you used.

[Lacona]

Sorry, I'm completely new to SAS, never did anything like this before.
I can't find a list whatsoever for SAS formats and what they do and how they look like, so I don't know how they are supposed to be.
I tried this now:

proc sgplot data=income;
histogram dollar;
format dollar 12.;
yaxis values=(0 to 62 by 5) grid;
xaxis values=(0 to 105E3 by 5E3);
run;

but no changes on the xaxis.

[Reeza]

You should probably bookmark the documentation page then:

https://documentation.sas.com/?cdcId=pgmsascdc&cdcVersion=9.4_3.4&docsetId=pgmsashome&docsetTarget=h...

From there you can usually find everything you need, in this case click on formats and then search for scientific notation. Note the document type field as well - you likely want "Document: SAS Formats and Informats: Reference" not DS2. 

Ew. Format

Ew. Writes numeric values in scientific notation. Product: Base SAS Document: SAS DS2 Language Reference

proc sgplot data=income;
histogram dollar;
format dollar 12.;
yaxis values=(0 to 62 by 5) grid;
xaxis values=(0 to 105E3 by 5E3);
format dollar e8.;
run;

[Lacona]

I tried to run it with ew. but nothing changed.

[Reeza]

ew is incorrect you need to replace that w by the width which is a number.

[PaigeMiller]

---

@Lacona wrote:

Sorry, I'm completely new to SAS, never did anything like this before.
I can't find a list whatsoever for SAS formats and what they do and how they look like, so I don't know how they are supposed to be.
I tried this now:

proc sgplot data=income;
histogram dollar;
format dollar 12.;
yaxis values=(0 to 62 by 5) grid;
xaxis values=(0 to 105E3 by 5E3);
run;

but no changes on the xaxis.

---

I don't think the format command does anything in PROC SGPLOT, although it does work in most other procedures. In PROC SGPLOT you need the VALUESFORMAT= option of the XAXIS and/or YAXIS statement.

List of every known format in SAS 9.4:

https://documentation.sas.com/?cdcId=pgmmvacdc&cdcVersion=9.4&docsetId=allprodslang&docsetTarget=syn...

[Reeza]

SGPLOT will honour the format applied to a variable within the axis labels. It's often used when you need to control the order of bars for example so you code them as numeric and use a format to have the values displayed appropriately.

ValuesFormat can be used as well - but I think it's usually used to override the format on the variable or when you have dates you want displayed differently. Or at least those are the use cases I've seen so far.

Just tested on SAS 9.4M5

[PaigeMiller]

---

@Lacona wrote:

Hey all,

I tried to format the values of the xaxis from numeric to scientific notation, because I thought that might be an explanation why the tick intervals of 5000 don't work. It would be sufficient to have just minor ticks without notation.
Every format I could find here ( https://documentation.sas.com/?docsetId=grstatproc&docsetVersion=9.4&docsetTarget=n0kdscfhkob956n196...) is without explanation and not working also.

Gross E8 worked previously with proc boxplot, but not with sgplot.

Where can I find explanation for the available formats and how can I change my xaxis values properly?

 
 1          OPTIONS NONOTES NOSTIMER NOSOURCE NOSYNTAXCHECK;
 72         
 73         proc sgplot data=income;
 74         histogram dollar;
 75         yaxis values=(0 to 62 by 5) grid;
 76         xaxis values=(0 to 105E3 by 5E3) valuesformat=best;
 77         run;
 
 ERROR 772-580: Syntaxfehler: Konstanter oder dynamischer Wert erwartet.
 WARNING: Object will not be saved.
 NOTE:  Verwendet wurde: PROZEDUR SGPLOT - (Gesamtverarbeitungszeit):
       real time           0.00 seconds
       cpu time            0.02 seconds
       
 NOTE: The SAS System stopped processing this step because of errors.
 78         
 79         OPTIONS NONOTES NOSTIMER NOSOURCE NOSYNTAXCHECK;

 Thank you so much!

---

Note the dot after the word best

xaxis values=(0 to 105E3 by 5E3) valuesformat=best.;

Although as others have said, maybe you don't want the BEST. format in this case.

[PGStats · Accepted solution]

Use e. format and option minor, and specify the values for major ticks only :

data test;
call streaminit(67678568);
do i = 1 to 200;
    dollar = 1e5 * rand("Beta", 4, 4);
    output;
    end;
run;

proc sgplot data=test;
histogram dollar;
xaxis values=(0 to 105E3 by 1E4) minor minorcount=1 valuesformat=e8. ;
run;

[Panagiotis]

To confirm, you are trying to add the scientific notation format to the xaxis in your histogram?

Try this. I am using the SASHELP.CARS table that you probably have available:

/*Copy SASHELP.CARS, copy MSRP to Price. Price has no format*/
data cars;
	set sashelp.cars;
	keep Price;
	Price=MSRP;
run;

/*Default histogram. No format or new xaxis values*/
proc sgplot data=cars;
	histogram price;
run;

/*Add a format and new xaxis values range*/
proc sgplot data=cars;
	histogram price;
	xaxis values=(0 to 200000 by 25000);
	format price e8.;
run;

[Lacona]

Yesss!!! It worked! Thank you all!