USAGE

DESCRIPTION

Default autorange behavior is as follows: For numeric data the range is set to the nearest whole high and low scale increments that encompass the min and max of the data. For date and time data the range is set to the exact min and max of the data.

VARIABLES THAT ARE SET

DATAXMIN, DATAXMAX

The actual minima and maxima of the data field when ranging in X. Different from XMIN and XMAX in that these do not include any margin.

DATAYMIN, DATAYMAX

The actual minima and maxima of the data field when ranging in Y. Different from YMIN and YMAX in that these do not include any margin.

EXAMPLES

SUBATTRIBUTES

datafield=dfields

The only subattribute that must be specified is datafield=dfields, and it must be given before any other subattribute. The dfields will be scanned to automatically find minima and maxima, and the range (either x or y) will be set accordingly. dfields may be a single dfield or a comma-delimited list of several dfields with no embedded space. Unless combomode= is given, all fields will be treated independently when searching for a minima and maxima. Invalid or non-existant dfields will be silently ignored, but there must be at least one valid dfield. [Field list contributed by Paul Totten.]

combomode=stack | hilo

If stack is specified, and multiple datafields are given, the datafields will be summed before searching for minima and maxima. This is useful when generating stacked bar graphs. hilo allows autoranging to work properly when superimposing error bars over another graph. Usually 2 datafields are used, one of which is the error bar amount.

The following subattributes allow autorange behavior to be controlled explicitly:

incmult=h

controls the amount of margin at high and low end when working with numeric data in default mode as described above. The default h is 1.0. The scale increment will be multiplied by h before determining the range. The low end of the range will not dip below zero if data are all positive. Probably should not be used with any other subattributes except datafield=.

nearest=s

may be used to explicitly define the extent of the range, to a boundary corresponding to a round value of your choice. If you do not specify a nearest= value autorange will guess based on the magnitude of the data. If nearest=exact is specified, the range will be the exact minima to the exact maxima. See the table below for some possible values for s. An example: if s is 100, and the data range from 23 to 1162, the plot's range will be 0 to 1200. The following illustrates some possible values for nearest=s:

s         range min and max will be set to:
-------   ---------------------------------
10        the nearest multiple of 10
0.1       the nearest multiple of 0.1
month     the nearest month boundary (date or datetime scaletypes only)
quarter   the nearest quarter-year boundary (date or datetime only)
year      the nearest year boundary (date or datetime only)
hour      the nearest hour boundary (time or datetime only)
day       the nearest day boundary (datetime only)
exact     the exact minima and maxima
(none)    a reasonable default (numeric data only)

margin=m

If specified, m basic units will be added to the maxima and also subtracted from the minima, before considering nearest. This may be used to guarantee margins at each end of the range. (Basic units are days for date and datetime scaletypes; and minutes for time.)

lowfix=lowval

If specified, the minima will always be lowval. This is useful when you want only the maxima to be automatically set based on data.

hifix=hival

If specified, the maxima will always be hival. This is useful when you want only the minima to be automatically set based on data.

format=printfspec

For very small numbers this subattribute may be useful, since normally values are rounded to six decimal places.

selectrows=conditional expression

This allows a conditional expression to be applied in order to select data rows to be tested when scanning for minima and maxima. If used, this subattribute must be the last on the line, and will have embedded spaces, unlike the other subattributes. New in 2.00. See example below.

Example: xautorange: datafield=2 nearest=month margin=31

Example: yautorange: datafield=3,4,5,6,7 selectrows=@sex = f

Some gallery examples where xautorange is used: qual , hitcount , and milltest