pairwise box plots

[sestini]

Is there a way to plot a series of pairwise box plots with stata 12?
using: graph box variable1-variable10, over(sex) I obtain 10 plots 1 to 10 for males, followed by 10 more for females.
What I need is to group them so that variable1 for males is close to variable1 for females, then var2 for males and females, and so forth
It is probably simple, and I may be missing something obvious, but I studied the help and searched the web without finding a solution
thanks, piersante

[Nick Cox]

Here is a pattern to play with. Where I have turn trunk, you need to give variable1-variable10 (in practice, use better names if you are not really doing so). Where I have foreign you have sex.

sysuse auto, clear

foreach v of var turn trunk { 
    rename `v' y`v' 
}

gen id = _n 
reshape long y, i(id) string j(which) 

graph box y, over(foreign) by(which) ytitle(whatever)

[sestini]

Thanks a lot. That was useful.
However the by() splits the figure, while I would prefer to have all the boxes in a single line, with varying spacing so that pairs of boxes by sex are closer toghether. But this is something I could live without.

I also found an article in the Stata journal of '09 "Speaking Stata: Creating and varying box plots" which gives some more complicated solutions and probably ight produce the outcome that I had in mind.

Your solution is much simpler, though, and I might follow it.
So thanks again!

piersante

[Nick Cox]

If you use that 2009 article, check out the 2013 correction at http://www.stata-journal.com/article...ticle=gr0039_1

Please register with your full name "Piersante Sestini" (?) using the Contact Us button on the bottom right of every page.

[Nick Cox]

You can run this to get an idea of different technique

clear 
set obs 100
gen x = _n > 50 
forval j = 1/10 {
    gen y`j' = rnormal()
    separate y`j', by(x) veryshortlabel gen(Y`j') 
}

graph box Y*

You would need to get in there to edit the variable labels.