In PROC GCHART, when creating a bar chart, the color of a vertical bar is determined by the PATTERN statement. The PATTERN statement assigns colors to the bars based on the alphabetical or hierarchical order of the values. How can I specifically assign a color based on a value? For example, if my values are "boy" and "girl," how can I make the value "boy" appear in blue regardless of whether the value "girl" exists and vice versa?
Unfortunately, if you are using SAS/GRAPH, you can't use an attribute map, which is the way to handle this. If you have SAS 9.2+, you can use ODS Graphics (PROC SGPLOT), which has that option. attrmap connects the proc with a dataset that stores the values of a variable and the color (or other attributes) associated with each value of that variable.
An example from the SAS doc page on SGPLOT:
*create dummy dataset;
data finances;
format income dollar8. expense dollar8.;
length expensetype $ 9;
input Year incometype $ income expensetype $ expense;
datalines;
2000 Salary 20000 Utilities 4000
2000 Bonus 2000 Rent 7000
2000 Gifts 500 Food 8000
2001 Salary 25000 Utilities 5000
2001 Bonus 1000 Rent 8000
2001 Gifts 200 Food 6000
2002 Salary 23000 Utilities 4500
2002 Bonus 500 Rent 9000
2002 Gifts 500 Food 7000
;
run;
*Create attribute map. ID = used to specify its use later, usually matches the variable but does not have to. Value is the value you are changing the color/etc. for. Then variables appropriate to what you are changing and to what, so fillcolor here for example. ;
data attrmap;
length value $ 9 fillcolor $ 9; *I find that problems with attrmaps usually are due to length differences in dataset variables vs attrmap variables;
retain linecolor "black"; *using black for all of them;
input id $ value $ fillcolor $;
datalines;
income Salary blue
income Bonus gray
income Gifts lightgray
expense Utilities red
expense Rent yellow
expense Food orange
;
run;
proc sgplot data=finances dattrmap=attrmap; *specifying the attrmap here;
yaxis label="Dollars";
vbarparm category=year response=income / group=incometype attrid=income /*using the attrmap here */
barwidth=0.4 discreteoffset=-0.2 name="income";
vbarparm category=year response=expense / group=expensetype attrid=expense
barwidth=0.4 discreteoffset=0.2 name="expense";
keylegend "income" / position=bottomleft title="Income";
keylegend "expense" / position=bottomright title="Expenses";
run;