Graphing with date labels

[Ann Jun]

I am trying to create a graph using the twoway command with monthly dates on my x-axis, in the format (%tm). I would like these dates to be displayed as "Jan 2010, Feb 2010, Mar 2010" etc. instead of "2010m1, 2010m2, 2010m3", how may I do this?

[Dung Le]

Hi Ann,

Perhaps, the following code may help:

xlabel(2010m1 "Jab 2010"  2010m2 "Feb 2010" 2010m3 "Mar 2010")

[Maarten Buis]

You can fine tune how a date is displayed by adding stuff after %tm. The details are explained in help datetime_display_formats. However, if you don't want the details (for now) than the short answer to your question is that you format your time variable as: %tmMon_ccYY

[Nick Cox]

Even with @Maarten Buis's accurate advice I fear that your axis labels will now take up a great deal of space. Even with just 12 observations in 2010 the result of this is to me unbearable -- unless you resort to the ugly xla(, ang(v)):

clear
set obs 12
gen foo = 42
gen mdate = ym(2009, 12) + _n 
format mdate %tmMon_CCYY
line foo mdate, xla(600/611)

What is the range of your monthly dates?


Dung Le #2 won't work.

. line foo mdate, xla(2010m7 "July 2010")
invalid label specifier, :  2010m7 "July 2010":
r(198);