The CHART Procedure

Overview

The CHART procedure produces vertical and horizontal bar charts, block charts, pie charts, and star charts. These types of charts graphically display values of a variable or a statistic associated with those values. The charted variable can be numeric or character.

PROC CHART is a useful tool to visualize data quickly, but if you need to produce presentation-quality graphics that include color and various fonts, you can use SAS/GRAPH software. The GCHART procedure in
SAS/GRAPH software produces the same types of charts as PROC CHART does. In addition, PROC GCHART can produce donut charts.

The following sections explain the different types of charts that PROC CHART can produce. All of the charts illustrate the results from a multiple-choice survey of 568 people, with five possible responses that range from "always" to "never."

About Bar Charts
Horizontal and vertical bar charts display the magnitude of data with bars, each of which represents a category of data. The length or height of the bars represents the value of the chart statistic for each category.

Vertical Bar Chart shows a vertical bar chart that displays the number of responses for the five categories from the survey data. The following statements produce the output:

options nodate pageno=1 linesize=80 
        pagesize=30;

proc chart data=survey;
   vbar response / sumvar=count 
        midpoints='Always' 'Usually' 
           'Sometimes' 'Rarely' 'Never';
run;

Vertical Bar Chart

Horizontal Bar Chart shows the same data presented in a horizontal bar chart. The two types of bar charts have essentially the same characteristics, except that horizontal bar charts by default display a table of statistic values to the right of the bars. The following statements produce the output:

options nodate pageno=1 linesize=80 
        pagesize=60;

proc chart data=survey;
   hbar response / sumvar=count
        midpoints='Always' 'Usually' 
           'Sometimes' 'Rarely' 'Never';
run;

Horizontal Bar Chart

About Block Charts
Block charts display the relative magnitude of data by using blocks of varying height, each set in a square that represents a category of data. Block Chart shows the number of each survey response in the form of a block chart.

options nodate pageno=1 linesize=80 
        pagesize=30;

proc chart data=survey;
   block response / sumvar=count
         midpoints='Always' 'Usually' 
            'Sometimes' 'Rarely' 'Never';
run;

Block Chart

About Pie Charts
Pie charts represent the relative contribution of parts to the whole by displaying data as wedge-shaped slices of a circle. Each slice represents a category of the data. Pie Chart shows the survey results divided by response into five pie slices. The following statements produce the output:

options nodate pageno=1 linesize=80 
        pagesize=35;

proc chart data=survey;
   pie response / sumvar=count;
run;

Pie Chart

About Star Charts
With PROC CHART, you can produce star charts that show group frequencies, totals, or mean values. A star chart is similar to a vertical bar chart, but the bars on a star chart radiate from a center point, like spokes in a wheel. Star charts are commonly used for cyclical data, such as measures taken every month or day or hour, or for data like these in which the categories have an inherent order ("always" meaning more frequent than "usually" which means more frequent than "sometimes"). Star Chart shows the survey data displayed in a star chart. The following statements produce the output:

options nodate pageno=1 linesize=80 
        pagesize=60;

proc chart data=survey;
   star response / sumvar=count;
run;

Star Chart

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