Data Structure
It is important for you to understand how to interface your data with the pChart library. To help
you dealing with points and serie, I've made the pData class. You're free to use it or not! Sometimes
it can be easier to directly create the Data & DataDescription arrays. This is a short summary
on how the data are structured.
Data array
This array contains all series and associated data. The fisrt key should be kept as numeric and lineary
incremented.
Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[Name] => January
[Serie1] => 0
[Serie2] => 1
)
[1] => Array
(
[Name] => February
[Serie1] => 1
[Serie2] => 4
)
[2] => Array
(
[Name] => March
[Serie1] => 4
[Serie2] => 9
)
)
To rawly generate this array you can proceed this way :
$Data[] = array("Name"=>"January","Serie1"=>0,"Serie2"=>1);
$Data[] = array("Name"=>"February","Serie1"=>1,"Serie2"=>4);
$Data[] = array("Name"=>"March","Serie1"=>4,"Serie2"=>9);
You can also do this way :
$Data[0]["Name"] = "January";
$Data[0]["Serie1"] = 0;
$Data[0]["Serie2"] = 1;
$Data[1]["Name"] = "February";
/* ... */
Data Description array
This array contains informations about the series : which ones will be displayed on graphs, their name,
which serie to use as abscissa data.
Array
(
[Position] => Name
[Values] => Array
(
[0] => Serie1
[1] => Serie2
)
[Description] => Array
(
[Serie1] => Year 2007
[Serie2] => Year 2008
)
)
$DataDescription["Position"] contains the name of the serie to use as abscissa data. $DataDescription["Values"]
contains the list of the series that will be displayed when calling a graph function of the pChart library.
$DataDescription["Description"][
] contains the description of the serie that will be displayed when
calling the drawLegend function.
// Set the serie Name as abscissa data
$DataDescription["Position"] = "Name";
// Display Serie1 and Serie2 when calling graphs functions
$DataDescription["Values"] = array("Serie1","Serie2");
// Set the description of Serie1 to "Year 2007"
$DataDescription["Description"]["Serie1"] = "Year 2007";
Going deeper
Since release 1.27 it is now possible to set special attributes to the X and Y axis. This allow you to name an
axis or set its format. All this informations are stored in the DataDescription array.
// Set the X and Y axis name
$DataSet->SetXAxisName("Hour");
$DataSet->SetYAxisName("Call duration");
// Set the X and Y axis format
$DataSet->SetYAxisFormat("time");
$DataSet->SetXAxisFormat("date");
// Set the X and Y axis units
$DataSet->SetYAxisUnit("°C")
$DataSet->SetXAxisUnit("h")
This infos are stored in the following way in the DataDescription array:
Array
(
[Format] => Array
(
[X] => date
[Y] => time
)
[Unit] => Array
(
[X] => °C
[Y] => h
)
[Axis] => Array
(
[Y] => Call duration
)
)
Units and axis names are free. The following formats can be used : date (should contains an unix time stamp),
time (should contains a number of seconds), number (default format), metric (can contains everything)
Conclusion
You can build manualy this data structures depending of the source of your data. If you feel not
comfortable dealing with arrays, the pData class is here to assist you. One of the most simple graph can
be done this way :
// Create some data
$Data[] = array("Name"=>"A","Serie1"=>0);
$Data[] = array("Name"=>"B","Serie1"=>4);
$Data[] = array("Name"=>"C","Serie1"=>2);
$Data[] = array("Name"=>"D","Serie1"=>7);
$Data[] = array("Name"=>"E","Serie1"=>3);
$Data[] = array("Name"=>"F","Serie1"=>5);
// Set the serie Name as abscissa data
$DataDescription["Position"] = "Name";
// Display Serie1 when calling graphs functions
$DataDescription["Values"][] = "Serie1";
// Set the description of Serie1 to "Year 2007"
$DataDescription["Description"]["Serie1"] = "Year 2007";
Will produce something like :
Good luck with your data transformation!
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Last updated on 05/20/2008 |
