Creating monthly count data in SAS for use in SGPlot - need year/month xaxis label

Question

I need to create a timeseries graph (using PROC SGPLOT at the moment) that plots monthly counts of workplace incidents from 2000 to 2010.

The problem I am having is that I don't know how to organise the data in order to have the xaxis showing YEAR and MONTH.

At the beginning I have the following variables: DATE, YEAR, MONTH, INCIDENT_ID.

I successfully used PROC SQL to create counts of distinct INCIDENT_ID grouped by YEAR and MONTH (called 'COUNT'). I then unsuccessfully created a PROC SGPLOT using YEAR or MONTH for the xaxis, but this does not plot COUNT correctly. I then tried sorting the data set by YEAR, MONTH and created an TIME_ID variable that put them in order, and tried using this as the x-axis. While it plots COUNT correctly, it does not provide an understandable x-axis.

Therefore I have my counts (COUNT) that I want to plot in a PROC SGPLOT series, but what do I use as the x-axis to have it show YEAR and/or MONTH of COUNT? Or is there some obvious other way to do this?

You should provide sample data and the actual code you used (or equivalent) to make this easier to answer. If Dom's answer doesn't work for you, please do so so we can help you better. — Joe

DomPazz DomPazz · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-16T03:40:09

You need to specify MONYY7. format on your date variable. Then specify a month interval on the xaxis.

like so:

data test;
format date monyy7.;
count = 0;
do year=2010 to 2013;
    do month=1 to 12;
        count = count + ceil(ranuni(123)*2);
        date = mdy(month,1,year);
        output;
    end;
end;
run;

ods html;
ods graphics on / HEIGHT=10in; 
   proc sgplot data=test;
     scatter x=date y=count;
     xaxis interval=month fitpolicy=rotate;
   run;
ods html close;

I had to play with the image size to make the axis labels readable. I also rotated them so more could fit.

Creating monthly count data in SAS for use in SGPlot - need year/month xaxis label

1 Answers