Variable width bar graph

[Bryant Matthews]

Hello Nick.

First of all, you are a legend plain and simple, and I am delighted to post my first Statalist question to you! Your responses over the years to queries have been enlightening and - at times - downright enjoyable.

Is it possible to create a variable width bar graph using Stata? In the attachment below, I show variable spread along the y-axis that indicates return and variable width along the x-axis indicating relative investment.

Please advise.

[wbuchanan]

See

help twoway bar

You may also be interested in Nick's program -spineplot- which is available via the SSC archives.

[Nick Cox]

The answer is spanning bars, which were used in spineplot (SJ, SSC). Here's a stupid example:

 
clear
input x y
0   10
2      9
4     8
7    6
8    7
9 42
10 .
end
twoway bar y x, bartype(spanning)
twoway bar y x, bartype(spanning) base(0)

Different colours are a pain but achievable:

 
separate y, by(x) veryshortlabel 
twoway bar y0 x, bartype(spanning) base(0) || bar y2 x, bartype(spanning) yla(0/10)

and so on.

The fullest account is now http://www.stata-journal.com/article...article=gr0063

The last y value must be missing, as above, because you must have one more x value than you have y values.

[Bryant Matthews]

Gentlemen, these are wonderfully helpful responses. I can take it from here. Thank you.