Re: st: graph bar and/or catplot

[Nick Cox <n.j.cox@stata.com>]

I don't understand quite what the problem is.

-catplot- is a user-written program from SSC. Please recall the advice 
to specify where user-written programs you refer to come from.

Users of -catplot- occasionally tickle a bug in -graph bar- that last I 
heard was not fixed and -- most importantly for b. water -- will never 
be fixed for Stata 8. There is an easy work-around. See

http://www.stata.com/statalist/archive/2008-05/msg00426.html

-catplot- here is just a wrapper for -graph bar- and doesn't behave in a 
 fundamentally different way. In particular, neither knows anything 
about categories that might exist but do not show up in your data.

Your variable names suggest to me that you have two categorical 
variables on the same footing, which in turn leads me to suggest 
-tabplot- from SSC or -spineplot- from the SJ. There is some discussion in

SJ-8-1  gr0031  . . . . . . . . . . . Speaking Stata: Spineplots and 
their kin
        (help spineplot if installed) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  N. 
J. Cox
        Q1/08   SJ 8(1):105--121
        discusses spineplots (mosaic plots), a type of bar chart for
        showing frequencies, proportions, or percentages of cross-
        classified categorical variables

SJ-4-2  gr0004  .  Speaking Stata: Graphing categorical and 
compositional data
        . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  N. 
J. Cox
        Q2/04   SJ 4(2):190--215                                 (no 
commands)
        discusses graphical possibilities for categorical and
        compositional data

Of these, -tabplot- can be persuaded to show bars of magnitude zero for 
cells that don't exist.

Nick
n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk

b. water wrote:


> stata 8.2,
>
> my data set-up look something like this:
>
> subject laser1  laser2
> 1       1       2
> 2       2       1
> 3       3       3
> 4       2       4
> 5       3       1
> .       .       .
> .       .       .
> .       .       .
> .       .       .
> .       .       .
> 316     4       1
>
> there were 316 subjects. laser1 has categories which take the values of 1 to 5 but returns from the subjects showed only categories 1 to 4 
i.e. none of the subejct reported 5, likewise with laser2. i want to 
create a graph ala [G] page 134 of Stata 8 [G]raphic manual, where the
y-axis would show the total count of the subjects for each category 
while x-axis would show categories 1 to 5, with the chart itself consisting

of two bars of different colors for each laser1 and laser2.

> i tried various gr bar commands but just couldn't produce the kind of graphs that i want. using catplot e.g.:
>
> catplot bar laser1 laser2, asyvars
>
> came close but somehow it is showing 3 bars in some categories when it should only be showing two bars i.e. one for each laser1 and laser2 respectively. 
the other thing is i also want to show on the graph is category 5 (i.e. 
value of 5) on the x-axis albeit it'll be empty i.e. 0, but where in 
using the
above command, only 1 to 4 in the x-axis was displayed.

> i would appreciate any advice/help either using the gr bar route or the catplot route or both to achieve what i wanted to show.
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