XY Line where first series is an alpha

[startz]

Suppose you make a group where the first object is an alpha and the rest are numerical series. Then you make an XY line graph. What should happen?

What I was hoping for was that the graph would use the first series as labels. (It would certainly be nice if it did.) What seems to happen is that you get a blank graph. I'm not sure if that's a bug, the intended behavior, no behavior is defined, or user error. Look at group02 in the attached.

Clipboard01.png (7.06 KiB) Viewed 6928 times

[EViews Gareth]

Intended behavior. The alpha is a series full of NAs, which makes a boring graph

[startz]

So is there another way to achieve the intended behavior? Excel is willing to

Experienced teacher salaries relative to starting.png (10.95 KiB) Viewed 6911 times

[EViews Gareth]

Define the expected behaviour.

[startz]

Use the observation number for the x-axis, but label the x-axis using the first series rather than the observation number.

[EViews Gareth]

With your group open, run this:

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d(noerr) temp d(noerr) tempgr %spec = _this.@members %drop = @word(%spec,1) group temp {%spec} temp.drop {%drop} freeze(tempgr) temp.line tempgr.setobslabel(series) {%drop} _this.display tempgr d temp tempgr

I created some data with the following and ran it:

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create u 4 alpha label smpl 1 1 label = "Starting" series us = 100 series oecd=100 series canada = 100 series finland = 100 series korea=100 smpl 2 2 label = "10 years" series us = 123 series oecd=140 series canada = 150 series finland = 122 series korea=150 smpl 3 3 label = "15 years" series us = 136 series oecd=140 series canada = 155 series finland = 128 series korea=160 smpl 4 4 label = "maximum" series us = 150 series oecd=140 series canada = 155 series finland = 140 series korea=275 smpl @all group g label us oecd canada finland korea show g

[startz]

Wow, really nice.

Is there a gui way to setobslabel to do this manually?

[EViews Gareth]

Yep

[startz]

Oh. So is the trick to make a line graph ignoring the label series, and then stick in the labels???

[EViews Gareth]

Right.

[startz]

Not in may case, but I can see where that could be an issue.

[EViews Glenn]

[edit]I previously asked whether there were any repeats in the alpha series which Startz responded to, just as I saw the posted workfile. I then deleted my earlier post so that I could post the following (sorry about the confusion).

In this case, I think there's a better approach. You have one label per observation with no repeats so I think that what you really want to do is to use the alpha series to label observations. In such a setting, I believe that

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pagestruct tenure group group03 us oecd canada finland korea group03.line

would seem to give you want you want.

[startz]

Thanks Glenn. Gareth's setobslabel "trick" avoids having to restructure the page. Any advantages or disadvantages one way or the other?

[EViews Glenn]

If the alpha are truly obs identifiers, then it's probably better to restructure since everywhere you have obs labels, we'll use them (as in the spreadsheet view, etc.).

[startz]

Got it.