PROC SGPLOT : How to use Custom Colors in Stacked Bar Chart

[P_S_]

Hi All,

I need some help using custom colors in Vertical Bar Charts.

I am using SGPLOT / VBAR statement and version is SAS 9.3.

Here is the simple example of what I have. But I would like to use user defined colors (let's say blue green yellow black brown etc etc).

Is there a quick and simple way to do that? Thank you for all your help.

P.S.

data shoes;
set sashelp.shoes;
where region in ('Africa', 'Middle East', 'United States', 'Canada');
run;

proc sgplot data=shoes;
vbar region / response=sales group=product groupdisplay=stack stat=sum;
run;

[DanH_sas]

At v9.3, you can use Attribute Maps to assign colors to specific group values. For the example below, I flipped the category and group variables so that I had fewer colors to define 🙂

data shoes;

set sashelp.shoes;

where region in ('Africa', 'Middle East', 'United States', 'Canada');

run;

data attrmap;

retain id "myid";

input value $ 1-13 fillcolor $ 15-20;

cards;

Africa        blue

Middle East   green

United States yellow

Canada        black

;

run;

proc sgplot data=shoes dattrmap=attrmap;

vbar product / response=sales group=region groupdisplay=stack stat=sum attrid=myid;

run;

[DanH_sas]

Sorry, one more thing -- set the LINECOLOR to BLACK in the dataset.

data attrmap;

retain id "myid" linecolor "black";

input value $ 1-13 fillcolor $ 15-20;

cards;

Africa        blue

Middle East   green

United States yellow

Canada        black

;

run;

[P_S_]

Hi DanH,

This is great example in this case. But the problem is I have many variables that I need to create stacked bar chart on and each of the variable has different values and are not consistent between variables.

This will create a problem for me as I will need to define colors for lots of values.

I have used GCHART before and have defined colors in pattern statement and the graph would automatically pick up the colors.

pattern1 value=s color=red ;

pattern2 value=s color=green ;

pattern3 value=l5 color=black;

and I was thinking something similar to that in SGPLOT. Is that an option?

[DanH_sas]

For SAS 9.4 this is trivial. We have a STYLEATTRS statement in the SG procedures where you can define a list of data colors for fills, lines, and markers. Since you said your version was SAS 9.3, I tried to give you a solution where your would not have to modify a style template. However, creating an ODS style with your custom colors is an option if this is something you need to consistently reproduce.

[P_S_]

Hi DanH,

Yes I am still using 9.3. Can you please share an example of creating the ODS style with the custom color? That solution might work in my case. I want to give that a try.

And by the way I am outputting the plots to PDF destination.

Thanks for the help.

[Jay54]

%MODSTYLE is an easy way to create a style from a parent with specific group colors.

http://blogs.sas.com/content/graphicallyspeaking/2012/06/14/quick-and-easy-with-modstyle/

[lisagros]

That is easier than Proc template with the added benefit that  if you have dynamic parameters you can fix the colors for a specific id - ie Canada is always red, and US always blue

Now to convert my all my templates to that method as we migrate to 9.4!

[lisagros]

Hi

Controlling the colors of group bars can be done through Proc Template

proc template;

     define style styles.barcolor;

Style GraphData 1 fom GraphData1/

     Contrast Color = blue

     Color = blue;

end;

run;

Do for each color in the bar

Reference this style in the style=barcolor output for instance

ods html style=barcolor;