## proc breakaxis | Welcome Gallery Handbook |
| Manual page for proc_breakaxis(PL)

## DESCRIPTION

proc breakaxis may be used to render a "break" symbol when preparing plots that have a broken axis in order to accomodate an extreme value. (Introduced in version 1.3).``

In terms of plotting mechanics, breaking an axis means that one region of the plotting area uses one scale space, while the other region uses a different scale space. A "break" symbol is used to illustrate where these two regions meet.`` Ploticus cannot render broken axis plots automatically; generally they are "by hand" efforts.``

The general approach is to use a "trick": set up one space, plot the values with a truncate option so that the extreme values do not go out of range, then set up a second space immediately adjacent to the first one, plot the values again so that only extremeties show, then use proc breakaxis to render a break symbol along the axis and again within the plot.`` The two plotting areas must be proportional in scaling.``

Broken axis plotting works with proc bars, proc rangebar, and proc scatterplot.`` It currently does not work with lineplots or rangesweep, because these are unable to confine to the plotting area.``

## EXAMPLE

Gallery examples where this is used is brokenaxis and spence_rt

## MANDATORY ATTRIBUTES

The `breakpoint` attribute must be specified.``

## ATTRIBUTES

axis `x` | `y`

  The axis that is to be broken. Default is `y`.``

breakpoint plotvalue

  Where the break is to be rendered, in `axis` space.`` This attribute must be specified.``

  Example: `axis: y breakpoint: 25` would break the Y axis at Y = 25.``

location `axis` | plotvalue

  The location where the break symbol is to be rendered.`` `axis` causes the symbol to be placed on the left or bottom axis. Otherwise, plotvalue is used.`` Default is `axis`.``

  Example: `axis: y breakpoint: 25 location: axis` would render a break symbol on the Y axis at Y = 25.``

  Example: `axis: y breakpoint: 25 location: 30` would render a break symbol at X = 30, Y = 25, presumably to break a bar, etc.

style `slant` | `straight`

  The style of the break symbol. Default is `slant`.``

linelength n

  The length of the break symbol lines.`` n is in absolute units. Default is 0.2 inches.``

fillcolor color

  The color used for the rubout area. Default is the current background color. If you used a different color for the plotting area, that color should be specified here.``

gapsize n

  The distance (in absolute units) between the two lines of the break symbol.``

linedetails linedetails

  Controls the color, line width, etc. of the break symbol lines.``
  data display engine
  Copyright Steve Grubb

Markup created by unroff 1.0, `` `` June 18, 2001.