Line graphs: How to make values on X-axis appear in chronological order.

[es_edu]

Good morning,

I'm creating a line graph to display longitudinal data for school years.  My x-axis variables are character values and I want them displayed in chronological order (2020-21 -> 2021-22 -> 2022-23).

Right now it is defaulting to showing the most recent years first to the left and the oldest data further to the right.  Is there a way to fix this?

[ballardw]

Easiest to ensure chronological order is to use DATES.

If that isn't possible (though should be) then numeric values.

I deal with school year data where the reports want to see "year" values similar to your 2021-22.

If the data is already summarized I use one of the values for year such as 2021 to represent the start of the "year". Then have a custom format to display the the value as 2021-22 as needed.

So extract the first part that variable into a numeric with code in a data step like : yearnum = input(scan(yearvar,2,'-'),f4.);

Then use this to create a format,

data syearcontrol;
   fmtname = 'Syear';
   type = 'N';
   do start=1990 to 2200;
      label = catx('-',start,put( mod(start+1,100),z2.));
      output;
   end;
run;

proc format library=work cntlin=syearcontrol;
run;

/* test that the format was created and usable*/
data _null_;
  do year= 2000 to 2010;
    put year= syear.;
  end;
run;

Use whatever you think useful in the Syearcontrol data step though having a couple hundred years more than you expect may not hurt just in case. Excercise for the interested reader to add a last observation with HLO set to 'O' with a label of "Out of range" or similar value.

The last data step writes examples to the log for a small range of values.

Use the Syear format as either the default for the variable or just for use in the graph.

Note: you will need to either recreate the format each session you want to use it OR place the format into a permanent library that your FMTSEARCH SAS system option sees.

[Madelyn_SAS · Accepted solution]

You could try a custom sort for your category. Right click the data item on the Data pane and select Custom Sort,