## scale units

Version 2.32

Manual page for scale_units(PL)

## Linear

Standard linear numeric scale.`` Numeric values may be any mixture of integer or floating point (exponential/scientific notation e.g. 4.336e11 and 4.336e-27 is supported).`` Linear scaling is used for plotting continuous numeric data; it may also be used with undefined series, such as lineplots when no X value is present in the data.`` Display of numerics is often controlled using a printf-spec

## Log

Logarithmic numeric scale.`` Numeric values may be any mixture of integer or floating point (exponential/scientific notation is supported for large magnitude numbers).`` Also available is log+1 scaling, which is similar to log but uses `log( value+1 )`. This is useful for log-characteristic data that can include values at or near 0.0.`` If using log scaling along with autorange, and if values of 0.0 are found, log+1 scaling will automatically be used.`` Note: the proc axis `stubcull` attribute may be useful in eliminating colliding stubs when rendering log axes.``

## Categories

Positioning using categorical bins rather than a continuous scale.`` The categories themselves are alphanumeric labels.`` This scaletype is often useful in positioning bars, rangebars, etc.`` Category names generally are short (less than 40 chars long); they may contain embedded whitespace but this may be problematic if a category name will be used as a plotvalue or locvalue.`` In scripts, categories may be defined using proc categories before invoking proc areadef, or from within proc areadef.``

## Date

Allows date information to be plotted directly. A number of date notations (including year/month and quarter year notations) are supported for plotting and date arithmetic.`` It is possible to omit weekends if desired - see `omitweekends` and proc settings.``

Dates may be displayed in any of the supported date arithmetic formats, or in a number of additional display formats

The basic date unit is always a day, regardless of which notation is in use. Stub and tic increments may be expressed in `months` or `years`, if desired.``

## Time

Allows date information to be plotted directly. Several time notations are supported for plotting and time arithmetic.`` Times may be displayed in any of the supported time arithmetic formats.`` The basic time unit is a minute.``

## Datetime

Allows time information to be plotted across multiple days.`` Datetime data items contain a date and a time connected by a certain character, by default a dot (`.`). The connecting character can be set via proc settings or your config file; note that ISO8601 uses a `T` as the connecting character. If your data has the date and time in two separate fields, script writers can use the proc getdata `filter` attribute to concatenate them (with a connecting character) into one field.``

The date and (clock) time formats may be any of those supported for plotting and arithmetic. For example, if your datetime fields are like this: `22Aug1999.16:44` you would specify the datetime format as `ddMmmyyyy.hh:mm`.``

Display format is the same as above, except that the date component or the time component may be omitted if desired.``

The basic datetime unit is a day.``

A script example of datetime scaling is in hitcount

## Datetime with time windowing

Sometimes it is desirable to show only portions of each day, when showing the entire 24 hour day would be too much. Examples of this include a work day or a trading day. datetime scaling allows you to do this- you can indicate the time range for each day at the end of the datetime keyword.`` For example:

  `datetime9-17`
  would show only the hours from 9:00 to 17:00 for each day.

Rules: Only whole hours may be used in the time window definition.`` Time values that are outside the defined time window will be displayed at the time window boundary and a warning will be issued. The areadef range must contain time components that are within the time window range. Incremental axis labels in day, hour, or minutes units may be used.`` The end of one day and the beginning of the next day happen at the same point, and the next day stub takes presidence.``

A script example of datetime scaling with time window is in hitcount3
data display engine
Copyright Steve Grubb

Markup created by unroff 1.0, `` `` August 23, 2005.