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eZ Components 2006.2

Graph

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Introduction

The graph components enables you to create line, pie and bar charts. The output driver mechanism allows you to create different image types from each chart, and the available renderers make the chart output customizeable from simple two dimensional charts up to beautiful three dimensional data projections.

ezcGraph separates different parts of the graph in chart elements, which display one part of a graph, like the title, the legend or one axis, which are all independently configurable. This design not only allows you to use different colors or fonts for each chart element, but also define their position and size. The main chart elements are the same for all chart types. For easy definition of a overall layout for your graph you can use palettes, which define colors, symbols, fonts and spacings.

The data is provided through ezcGraphDataSets which are normally create from simple arrays, but also can perform statistical operations on the data, as you will see later.

Class overview

This section gives you an overview on all classes, that are intended to be used directly.

ezcGraphChart
Line, bar and pie chart extend this abstract class, that represents the chart to be rendered. It collects the data and chart elements, gives you access to all configuration settings and calls the driver and renderer for creating the final output.
ezcGraphDataSet
All data sets extend this abstract class to provide the data in a general form, accessible by the chart.
ezcGraphChartElement
All chart element store configuration values defining their layout. A elements layout definition contains background, border, margin, padding and font configuration. This class is extended by classes for Legend, Text, Background and the different axis types.
ezcGraphChartElementAxis
Extends ezcGraphChartElement and is the base class for all axis. There are different axis types for different data to be displayed, like numeric axis, string labeled axis or the date axis.
ezcGraphAxisLabelRenderer
Defines the rendering algorithm for labels and grid on axis. The distinction is necessary, because bar charts expect their labels placed directly below the data point, but numerical data in line charts should be placed next to grid.
ezcGraphPalette
Contains color, font, symbol and spacing definitions, that are applied to the complete graph.
ezcGraphRenderer
The renderer transforms chart primitives, like pie chart segments, legend or data lines, to image primitives. You have the choice between a two and a three dimensional renderer.
ezcGraphDriver
The driver actually renders image primitives to an image. The default driver will output a SVG, but you can also render JPEGs or PNGs using ext/gd.

Chart types

Pie charts

The following graph is a simple example how to create a pie chart using the default driver, palette and renderer.

  1. <?php
  2. 
  3. require_once 'tutorial_autoload.php';
  4. 
  5. $graph = new ezcGraphPieChart();
  6. $graph->title 'Access statistics';
  7. 
  8. $graph->data['Access statistics'] = new ezcGraphArrayDataSet( array(
  9.     'Mozilla' => 19113,
 10.     'Explorer' => 10917,
 11.     'Opera' => 1464,
 12.     'Safari' => 652,
 13.     'Konqueror' => 474,
 14. ) );
 15. $graph->data['Access statistics']->highlight['Opera'] = true;
 16. 
 17. $graph->render400150'tutorial_example_01.svg' );
 18. 
 19. ?>

You just create a new chart object, optionally set a title for the chart assign the data and render it. To assign data you access the dataset container like an array to define an identifier for your new created dataset. The dataset in this example is created from an array, where the keys are used as the identifiers for the data points.

Pie charts accept only one dataset, and the data point identifiers are used to create the legend. To generate the output the default SVG renderer is used with the default 2D renderer. For the automatic colorization colors are applied from the default Tango palette, which uses colors defined by the Tango Desktop Project: http://tango.freedesktop.org/Tango_Desktop_Project

There are several preparations on the data sets and data points which will be mentioned during this tutorial, one thing you can do is highlighting one special data set or point. In line 15 the data point Opera is highlighted which means in case of pie charts, that it is moved out of the centre by a user configurable value. See the renderer options class ezcGraphRendererOptions for details.

Sample pie chart

Pie chart options

There are several pie chart specific configuration options available. In the eZ components options are always accessed via public properties. For a full list of all available options have a look at the ezcGraphPieChartOption class.

  1. <?php
  2. 
  3. require_once 'tutorial_autoload.php';
  4. 
  5. $graph = new ezcGraphPieChart();
  6. $graph->title 'Elections 2005 Germany';
  7. 
  8. $graph->data['2005'] = new ezcGraphArrayDataSet( array(
  9.     'CDU' => 35.2,
 10.     'SPD' => 34.2,
 11.     'FDP' => 9.8,
 12.     'Die Gruenen' => 8.1,
 13.     'PDS' => 8.7,
 14.     'NDP' => 1.6,
 15.     'REP' => 0.6,
 16. ) );
 17. 
 18. $graph->options->label '%3$.1f%%';
 19. $graph->options->sum 100;
 20. $graph->options->percentThreshold 0.02;
 21. $graph->options->summarizeCaption 'Others';
 22. 
 23. $graph->render400150'tutorial_example_02.svg' );
 24. 
 25. ?>

In line 16 a sprintf format string is set, which defines how the labels are formatted. Instead of a sprintf format string you could also set a callback function which takes care of the label formatting.

In this example we set a custom sum to force the pie chart to show the complete 100%. The percentTreshHold lets the chart collect all data which has less percent to be aggregated in one data point. We also could define a absolute threshold, so that all data below a certain value would be aggregated in one data point, and the summarizeCaption defines the caption for this aggregated dataset.

Pie chart configuration options

Line charts

Line charts are created the exactly same way as pie charts, only that they accept more then one dataset. We are using default driver, palette and renderer again in this example.

  1. <?php
  2. 
  3. require_once 'tutorial_autoload.php';
  4. $wikidata = include 'tutorial_wikipedia_data.php';
  5. 
  6. $graph = new ezcGraphLineChart();
  7. $graph->title 'Wikipedia articles';
  8. 
  9. // Add data
 10. foreach ( $wikidata as $language => $data )
 11. {
 12.     $graph->data[$language] = new ezcGraphArrayDataSet$data );
 13. }
 14. 
 15. $graph->render400150'tutorial_example_03.svg' );
 16. 
 17. ?>

There are only two differences compared to the last example. In line we instantiate an ezcGraphLineChart object instead of a PieChart and beginning in line 10 we assign multiple datasets from an array we included earlier in the script. The array in the file tutorial_wikipedia_data.php is build like this:

  1. <?php
  2. return array(
  3.     'English' => array(
  4.         'Jan 2006' => 965,
  5.         'Feb 2006' => 1000,
  6.         ...
  7.     ),
  8.     ...
  9. );
 10. ?>


The result is the simple default line chart.

Simple line chart

Bar chart

Bar charts are very similar to line charts. They accept the same datasets and only define another default dataset display type and axis label renderer.

  1. <?php
  2. 
  3. require_once 'tutorial_autoload.php';
  4. $wikidata = include 'tutorial_wikipedia_data.php';
  5. 
  6. $graph = new ezcGraphBarChart();
  7. $graph->title 'Wikipedia articles';
  8. 
  9. // Add data
 10. foreach ( $wikidata as $language => $data )
 11. {
 12.     $graph->data[$language] = new ezcGraphArrayDataSet$data );
 13. }
 14. 
 15. $graph->render400150'tutorial_example_04.svg' );
 16. 
 17. ?>

As you can see in line 6 we only change the chart constructor again, and the other default values are applied.

Simple bar chart

Combine bar and line charts

The only difference between bar and line charts is the display type of the dataset and the axis label renderer of the x axis. You can use one of those constructors and modify you chart to display one or more datasets mack to the other display type. The axis label renderer are described later in this tutorial.

  1. <?php
  2. 
  3. require_once 'tutorial_autoload.php';
  4. $wikidata = include 'tutorial_wikipedia_data.php';
  5. 
  6. $graph = new ezcGraphBarChart();
  7. $graph->title 'Wikipedia articles';
  8. 
  9. // Add data
 10. foreach ( $wikidata as $language => $data )
 11. {
 12.     $graph->data[$language] = new ezcGraphArrayDataSet$data );
 13. }
 14. $graph->data['German']->displayType ezcGraph::LINE;
 15. 
 16. $graph->options->fillLines 210;
 17. 
 18. $graph->render400150'tutorial_example_05.svg' );
 19. 
 20. ?>

After creating the datasets we modify one of the datasets in line 14 to change the default display type to ezcGraph::LINE. To be able to recognize the line we set one graph option in line 16. The options are accessed like public properties and in this case we set an option for the graph called "fillLines", which indicates what transparency value is used tu fill up the space between data lines and the axis.

Combined bar and line chart

More bar chart options

There are some more options available for line and bar charts, which configure how the highlighting of data sets is applied to this chart type.

  1. <?php
  2. 
  3. require_once 'tutorial_autoload.php';
  4. $wikidata = include 'tutorial_wikipedia_data.php';
  5. 
  6. $graph = new ezcGraphBarChart();
  7. $graph->title 'Wikipedia articles';
  8. 
  9. // Add data
 10. foreach ( $wikidata as $language => $data )
 11. {
 12.     $graph->data[$language] = new ezcGraphArrayDataSet$data );
 13. }
 14. $graph->data['German']->displayType ezcGraph::LINE;
 15. $graph->data['German']->highlight true;
 16. $graph->data['German']->highlight['Mar 2006'] = false;
 17. 
 18. $graph->options->fillLines 210;
 19. 
 20. $graph->options->highlightSize 12;
 21. 
 22. $graph->options->highlightFont->background '#EEEEEC88';
 23. $graph->options->highlightFont->border '#000000';
 24. $graph->options->highlightFont->borderWidth 1;
 25. 
 26. $graph->render400150'tutorial_example_06.svg' );
 27. 
 28. ?>

In line 20 the size of the highlight boxes is configured and the lines 22 to 24 change the font configuration for the highlight boxes. The highlighting basically works the same way as for pie charts, but in line and bar charts it makes sense to highlight a complete data set and not only one single data point, due to the fact that there usually more then one data set in line and bar charts.

Configured highlight in combined line and bar chart

Palettes

ezcGraph offers palettes for the graphs which define the style properties of the charts elements. The style properties are similar to the ones you know from CSS:

  • color
  • background color
  • border color
  • border width
  • padding
  • margin
  • data set symbols

There are several predefined palettes delivered with ezcGraph and you can easily modify them or create a palette by yourself.

Using a predefined palette

You can assign each class class extending ezcGraphPalette to the palette property of your graph. You should do this before adding data sets, because the datasets request there colors from the palette. If you set the palette after creating the data sets, the data sets will still use the colors from the default palette.

  1. <?php
  2. 
  3. require_once 'tutorial_autoload.php';
  4. $wikidata = include 'tutorial_wikipedia_data.php';
  5. 
  6. $graph = new ezcGraphBarChart();
  7. $graph->palette = new ezcGraphPaletteBlack();
  8. $graph->title 'Wikipedia articles';
  9. 
 10. // Add data
 11. foreach ( $wikidata as $language => $data )
 12. {
 13.     $graph->data[$language] = new ezcGraphArrayDataSet$data );
 14. }
 15. $graph->data['German']->displayType ezcGraph::LINE;
 16. 
 17. $graph->options->fillLines 210;
 18. 
 19. $graph->render400150'tutorial_example_07.svg' );
 20. 
 21. ?>

The generated output differs quite a lot from the output using the default tango palette. The palette of course changes the colors of background, data sets and fonts. Additionally it sets a color for the major and minor grid, and defines a border width and color for the charts elements, defaults to a serif font and increases the margin between the chart elements.

Combined bar / line chart with non default palette

You can find a complete list of the available palettes in the class tree.

Modify a palette

In the last example we assigned a palette object to the palette property of the graph. You can of course create and modify the object before assigning it.

  1. <?php
  2. 
  3. require_once 'tutorial_autoload.php';
  4. require_once 'tutorial_custom_palette.php';
  5. $wikidata = include 'tutorial_wikipedia_data.php';
  6. 
  7. $graph = new ezcGraphBarChart();
  8. $graph->palette = new tutorialCustomPalette();
  9. $graph->title 'Wikipedia articles';
 10. 
 11. // Add data
 12. foreach ( $wikidata as $language => $data )
 13. {
 14.     $graph->data[$language] = new ezcGraphArrayDataSet$data );
 15. }
 16. $graph->data['German']->displayType ezcGraph::LINE;
 17. 
 18. $graph->options->fillLines 210;
 19. 
 20. $graph->render400150'tutorial_example_08.svg' );
 21. 
 22. ?>

The palette object is created in line 6 and we overwrite some of its properties. An see an overview on all available properties in the class documentation for the abstract class ezcGraphPalette. In this example we just set two colors for the automatic colorization of the datasets and three symbols for data sets.

Since we assign more then two datasets the first assigned color will be reused for the third data set. You can see the usage of the symbols in the legend and on the line chart. The line chart displays a symbol for each data point if the symbol is set to something different then ezcGraph::NO_SYMBOL which was the default data set symbol in the default palette.

Combined bar / line chart with modified palette

Create a custom palette

To fit the graphs easily in your corporate identity the easiest way will be to create your own palette and use it for the graphs you create. To create a custom palette you can either extend one of the predefined palettes and overwrite the properties or extend the abstract palette class.

  1. <?php
  2. 
  3. class tutorialCustomPalette extends ezcGraphPalette
  4. {
  5.     protected $axisColor '#000000';
  6. 
  7.     protected $majorGridColor '#000000BB';
  8. 
  9.     protected $dataSetColor = array(
 10.         '#4E9A0688',
 11.         '#3465A4',
 12.         '#F57900'
 13.     );
 14. 
 15.     protected $dataSetSymbol = array(
 16.         ezcGraph::BULLET,
 17.     );
 18. 
 19.     protected $fontName 'sans-serif';
 20. 
 21.     protected $fontColor '#555753';
 22. }
 23. 
 24. ?>

Each color you do not define defaults to a complete transparent white. As you can see in the example definition you can define a alpha value besides the normal RGB values for the colors. After creating a custom palette you can use it like every other palette before.

  1. <?php
  2. 
  3. require_once 'tutorial_autoload.php';
  4. require_once 'tutorial_custom_palette.php';
  5. $wikidata = include 'tutorial_wikipedia_data.php';
  6. 
  7. $graph = new ezcGraphBarChart();
  8. $graph->palette = new tutorialCustomPalette();
  9. $graph->title 'Wikipedia articles';
 10. 
 11. // Add data
 12. foreach ( $wikidata as $language => $data )
 13. {
 14.     $graph->data[$language] = new ezcGraphArrayDataSet$data );
 15. }
 16. $graph->data['German']->displayType ezcGraph::LINE;
 17. 
 18. $graph->options->fillLines 210;
 19. 
 20. $graph->render400150'tutorial_example_09.svg' );
 21. 
 22. ?>

The example now uses your palette to format the output.

Combined bar / line chart with custom palette

Chart elements

Internally each chart consists of several chart elements which all extends ezcGraphChartElement. Each of this elements can be configured independently and represents one of the rendered chart elements. A default chart consists of the following elements:

  • title
  • background
  • legend
  • xAxis
  • yAxis

The palette defines the default formatting of the elements. But you cannot only set foreground and background colors for all the elements, but also define their position in the chart, or prevent them from being rendered at all.

Font configuration

Regarding the font configuration we try to fulfill two goals. We want to give a single point where you should be able to configure the fonts used for the texts in the chart. On the other hand it should be possible to configure the used fonts independently for each chart element.

The used solution is, that you can modify the global font configuration by accessing $graph->options->font, and this takes effect on all chart elements until you intentionally access the font configuration of one chart element. The following section shows an example for this.

The chart title

The chart title element will only be rendered if you manually assign a title. It can be placed on top or at the bottom of the chart.

  1. <?php
  2. 
  3. require_once 'tutorial_autoload.php';
  4. 
  5. $graph = new ezcGraphPieChart();
  6. $graph->palette = new ezcGraphPaletteEzBlue();
  7. $graph->title 'Access statistics';
  8. 
  9. $graph->options->font->name 'serif';
 10. 
 11. $graph->title->background '#EEEEEC';
 12. $graph->title->font->name 'sans-serif';
 13. 
 14. $graph->options->font->maxFontSize 8;
 15. 
 16. $graph->data['Access statistics'] = new ezcGraphArrayDataSet( array(
 17.     'Mozilla' => 19113,
 18.     'Explorer' => 10917,
 19.     'Opera' => 1464,
 20.     'Safari' => 652,
 21.     'Konqueror' => 474,
 22. ) );
 23. 
 24. $graph->render400150'tutorial_example_10.svg' );
 25. 
 26. ?>

The chart title is simplest element, so that I can show you some more things here. In line 9 we change the global font configuration to use a serif font. In the SCG renderer only the font name is relevant, because it is up to the client to actually render the bitmap from the defined vector definitions.

In line 11 we access the font configuration of the title element and change it back to use a sans-serif font. From now on no change on the global font configuration will affect the titles font configuration. In line 14 we set a maximum font size, which now only affects the legend and the pie chart captions.

Besides the font configuration we set an option available for all chart elements in line 11 - the background color of the current element. This results in a gray background only for the title element.

Font and title configuration in pie chart

The background element

With all drivers except the ming (flash) driver you can set background images with the option to repeat them in the same way you know from CSS definitions.

  1. <?php
  2. 
  3. require_once 'tutorial_autoload.php';
  4. 
  5. $graph = new ezcGraphPieChart();
  6. $graph->palette = new ezcGraphPaletteEzRed();
  7. $graph->title 'Access statistics';
  8. 
  9. $graph->data['Access statistics'] = new ezcGraphArrayDataSet( array(
 10.     'Mozilla' => 19113,
 11.     'Explorer' => 10917,
 12.     'Opera' => 1464,
 13.     'Safari' => 652,
 14.     'Konqueror' => 474,
 15. ) );
 16. 
 17. $graph->background->image 'ez.png';
 18. $graph->background->position ezcGraph::BOTTOM ezcGraph::RIGHT;
 19. $graph->background->repeat ezcGraph::NO_REPEAT;
 20. 
 21. $graph->render400150'tutorial_example_11.svg' );
 22. 
 23. ?>

In line 17 we set a background image, and define it's position in line 18. You can use every combination of bottom / center / top with left / middle / right here, and it defaults to center | middle. In line 19 you finally set the type of repetition of the background image. This can be ezcGraph::NO_REPEAT or a combination of ezcGraph::HORIZONTAL and ezcGraph::VERTICAL. In this case we just want a logo to be placed at the bottom right corner of the image.

In the SVG driver the image is in lined using a data URL with the base64 encoded content of the binary image file, so that you do not need to worry about the locations of your referenced images, when you are using the SVG output driver.

In the GD driver super sampling is not applied to the images, because they would look blurred, what you certainly do not want for included bitmap images.

Pie chart with logo in background

Of course you could also apply settings on background color, borders, margin and padding on the background element, too.

The legend

The legend is shown by default and automatically generated from the assigned data. If you want to disable the legend you can do this by just setting it to false (line 9).

  1. <?php
  2. 
  3. require_once 'tutorial_autoload.php';
  4. 
  5. $graph = new ezcGraphPieChart();
  6. $graph->palette = new ezcGraphPaletteEzGreen();
  7. $graph->title 'Access statistics';
  8. 
  9. $graph->legend false;
 10. 
 11. $graph->data['Access statistics'] = new ezcGraphArrayDataSet( array(
 12.     'Mozilla' => 19113,
 13.     'Explorer' => 10917,
 14.     'Opera' => 1464,
 15.     'Safari' => 652,
 16.     'Konqueror' => 474,
 17. ) );
 18. 
 19. $graph->render400150'tutorial_example_12.svg' );
 20. 
 21. ?>
Pie chart without legend

Legend configuration options

Besides just hiding the legend you have some more configurations options. It can be placed at the bottom, left or top in the chart, you can assign a title for the legend and change the symbol sizes, or the legends size.

  1. <?php
  2. 
  3. require_once 'tutorial_autoload.php';
  4. 
  5. $graph = new ezcGraphPieChart();
  6. $graph->palette = new ezcGraphPaletteEz();
  7. $graph->title 'Access statistics';
  8. 
  9. $graph->data['Access statistics'] = new ezcGraphArrayDataSet( array(
 10.     'Mozilla' => 19113,
 11.     'Explorer' => 10917,
 12.     'Opera' => 1464,
 13.     'Safari' => 652,
 14.     'Konqueror' => 474,
 15. ) );
 16. 
 17. $graph->legend->position ezcGraph::BOTTOM;
 18. $graph->legend->landscapeSize .3;
 19. $graph->legend->title 'Legend';
 20. 
 21. $graph->render400150'tutorial_example_13.svg' );
 22. 
 23. ?>

To place the legend at another position of the graph you may set the position property of the legend like in line 17. If the legend is placed on top or bottom it will automatically use a landscape format. The space consumed by the legend is configured by the landscapeSize for the legends in landscape format and and portraitSize otherwise. The assigned value is the percent of space of the graph size consumed by the legend. The legend only displays a title if you manually set it like in line 19.

Legend configuration example

Axis

The axis defines the unit scale in line and bar charts. There are always two axis - the x-axis and the y-axis, which value ranges are automatically received from the datasets and are automatically scaled to display adequate values.

There are different types of values to display - for both, the x-axis and the y-axis. ezcGraph supports different axis types for different data you give the graph to render. For normal string keys usually the standard labeled axis is the right choice. The numeric axis is predestined to display numeric data, and the date time axis for data associated to dates or times. All of the axis types can be assigned to each axis.

Labeled Axis

The labeled axis is default for the x-axis in both - bar and line charts. It is written to display string labels of datasets and uses the centered label renderer as default. You saw it already in all the earlier examples with bar and line charts, but of course it can be used for both axis, too.

  1. <?php
  2. 
  3. require_once 'tutorial_autoload.php';
  4. $wikidata = include 'tutorial_wikipedia_data.php';
  5. 
  6. $graph = new ezcGraphLineChart();
  7. $graph->options->fillLines 210;
  8. $graph->options->font->maxFontSize 10;
  9. $graph->title 'Error level colors';
 10. $graph->legend false;
 11. 
 12. $graph->yAxis = new ezcGraphChartElementLabeledAxis();
 13. $graph->yAxis->axisLabelRenderer->showZeroValue true;
 14. 
 15. $graph->yAxis->label 'Color';
 16. $graph->xAxis->label 'Error level';
 17. 
 18. // Add data
 19. $graph->data['colors'] = new ezcGraphArrayDataSet(
 20.     array(
 21.         'info' => 'blue',
 22.         'notice' => 'green',
 23.         'warning' => 'orange',
 24.         'error' => 'red',
 25.         'fatal' => 'red',
 26.     )
 27. );
 28. 
 29. $graph->render400150'tutorial_example_14.svg' );
 30. 
 31. ?>

You could argue, if such a chart is really useful - but it works. Instead of using numeric values colors are assigned, when creating the data set. The labeled axis uses the values in the order they are assigned. In line 11 it is the first time we actually touch the axis label renderer. The axis label renderer describe how the labels are placed on the axis - the labeled axis uses the centered axis label renderer by default, which places the labels centered next to the steps on the axis. The setting in line 11 forces the renderer to show the zero value, even though it interferes with the axis.

Two labeled axis

Numeric Axis

The numeric axis is the default for the y axis. It was build to display numeric data and find automatically a good scaling for all values you may assign. Of course you can configure all scaling parameters manually.

  1. <?php
  2. 
  3. require_once 'tutorial_autoload.php';
  4. $wikidata = include 'tutorial_wikipedia_data.php';
  5. 
  6. $graph = new ezcGraphLineChart();
  7. $graph->title 'Some random data';
  8. $graph->legend false;
  9. 
 10. $graph->xAxis = new ezcGraphChartElementNumericAxis();
 11. 
 12. $graph->xAxis->min = -15;
 13. $graph->xAxis->max 15;
 14. $graph->xAxis->majorStep 5;
 15. 
 16. $data = array(
 17.     array(),
 18.     array()
 19. );
 20. for ( $i = -10$i <= 10$i++ )
 21. {
 22.     $data[0][$i] = mt_rand( -2359 );
 23.     $data[1][$i] = mt_rand( -2359 );
 24. }
 25. 
 26. // Add data
 27. $graph->data['random blue'] = new ezcGraphArrayDataSet$data[0] );
 28. $graph->data['random green'] = new ezcGraphArrayDataSet$data[1] );
 29. 
 30. $graph->render400150'tutorial_example_15.svg' );
 31. 
 32. ?>

In this example we force both axis to be a numeric axis in line 10 of the example. In the lines 12 to 15 we manually set the scaling options for the x axis. We don't set a minorStep size here, so it will be automatically calculated from the other values, as all the values are automatically calculated for the y axis. The we create some random data and create two datasets from it as usual.

Two numeric axis with random data

The example shows one advantage of numeric axis over labeled axis for numeric data. The axis are moved away from the charts border to display the negative values below / left of the axis.

Date time axis

Earlier in this tutorial we used a labeled axis for date time data on the x axis in the wikipedia examples. This works fine for evenly distributed time spans. For other data you should use the date time axis.

  1. <?php
  2. 
  3. require_once 'tutorial_autoload.php';
  4. 
  5. $graph = new ezcGraphLineChart();
  6. $graph->options->fillLines 210;
  7. $graph->title 'Concurrent requests';
  8. $graph->legend false;
  9. 
 10. $graph->xAxis = new ezcGraphChartElementDateAxis();
 11. 
 12. // Add data
 13. $graph->data['Machine 1'] = new ezcGraphArrayDataSet( array(
 14.     '8:00' => 3241,
 15.     '8:13' => 934,
 16.     '8:24' => 1201,
 17.     '8:27' => 1752,
 18.     '8:51' => 123,
 19. ) );
 20. $graph->data['Machine 2'] = new ezcGraphArrayDataSet( array(
 21.     '8:05' => 623,
 22.     '8:12' => 2103,
 23.     '8:33' => 543,
 24.     '8:43' => 2034,
 25.     '8:59' => 3410,
 26. ) );
 27. 
 28. $graph->data['Machine 1']->symbol ezcGraph::BULLET;
 29. $graph->data['Machine 2']->symbol ezcGraph::BULLET;
 30. 
 31. $graph->render400150'tutorial_example_16.svg' );
 32. 
 33. ?>

You can use timestamps or date time strings as data set keys. The strings will be converted using PHPs strtotime() function.

Date axis example

Axis label renderer

As mentioned earlier in this tutorial the axis label renderer defines where a label is drawn relatively to the step on the axis. You already saw examples for all available axis label renderers, but I want to mention them again:

  • ezcGraphAxisExactLabelRenderer

    This is the default renderer for the numeric axis. The labels are drawn directly below the axis step. This may look strange some times, because it is of course not possible to always draw all labels of one axis on one side of the step, because the last or first label would exceed the available space for the axis, so that it is rendered on the other side.

  • ezcGraphAxisCenteredLabelRenderer

    This renderer is default for the labeled axis in line charts and draws the label centered next to the step. Therefor this renderer omits the label for initial step on the axis (0, 0), but this can be forced as shown in example 14. The label is omitted, because it would interfere with the axis or the labels of the other axis, and probably not really readable.

  • ezcGraphAxisBoxedLabelRenderer

    This is the default renderer for the labeled axis in bar charts. The steps on the axis and the grid is not drawn at the position of the label, but between two labels. This helps to recognize which bars belongs together. The label is rendered centered between two of those steps on the axis.

Data sets

The data sets receive the data from the user and offer a defined interface for ezcGraph to access the users data.

Array data

The array data set was used for all examples until now, because it is the simplest way to provide data for ezcGraph.

Average polynomial dataset

The average dataset uses an existing dataset with numeric keys and build a polynomial which interpolates the data points in the given data set using the least squares algorithm.

  1. <?php
  2. 
  3. require_once 'tutorial_autoload.php';
  4. 
  5. $graph = new ezcGraphLineChart();
  6. $graph->title 'Some random data';
  7. $graph->legend->position ezcGraph::BOTTOM;
  8. 
  9. $graph->xAxis = new ezcGraphChartElementNumericAxis();
 10. 
 11. $data = array();
 12. for ( $i 0$i <= 10$i++ )
 13. {
 14.     $data[$i] = mt_rand( -5);
 15. }
 16. 
 17. // Add data
 18. $graph->data['random data'] = $dataset = new ezcGraphArrayDataSet$data );
 19. 
 20. $average = new ezcGraphDataSetAveragePolynom$dataset);
 21. $graph->data[(string) $average->getPolynom()] = $average;
 22. 
 23. $graph->render400150'tutorial_example_17.svg' );
 24. 
 25. ?>

We use again two numeric axis, because we only display numeric data in this example. First we create a normal array dataset from some random generated data in line 14. We assign this data set to the chart , to see how well the polynomial fits the random data points.

In line 20 we create a ezcGraphDataSetAveragePolynom from the random data with a maximum degree of the polynomial of 3 (which is also the default value). You can directly access the polynomial, what we use to set the name of the data set to the data sets polynomial, when we add the data set to the graph.

Average polynomial example

For the computation of the polynomial a equitation has to be solved where the size of the matrix is equal to the point count of the used dataset. Be careful with data sets with large point count. Because this could mean that ezcGraph will consume a lot of memory and processing power.

Renderer

The renderer transform chart primitives into image primitives, that means that things like a pie segment including labels, highlight etc. will be transformed into some text strings, circle sectors and symbols to link the text to the according circle sector.

ezcGraph comes with the default 2D renderer used in all of the above examples and a 3D renderer which renders the chart elements in a pseudo 3D isometric manner.

2D renderer

All examples until now used the default 2D renderer. But there are several renderer specific options, which were not yet shown.

Bar chart rendering options

All the options specially available for bar charts are available for all current renderers.

  1. <?php
  2. 
  3. require_once 'tutorial_autoload.php';
  4. $wikidata = include 'tutorial_wikipedia_data.php';
  5. 
  6. $graph = new ezcGraphBarChart();
  7. $graph->title 'Wikipedia articles';
  8. 
  9. // Add data
 10. foreach ( $wikidata as $language => $data )
 11. {
 12.     $graph->data[$language] = new ezcGraphArrayDataSet$data );
 13. }
 14. $graph->data['German']->displayType ezcGraph::LINE;
 15. $graph->data['German']->highlight true;
 16. $graph->data['German']->highlight['Mar 2006'] = false;
 17. 
 18. $graph->options->fillLines 210;
 19. 
 20. $graph->options->highlightSize 12;
 21. 
 22. $graph->options->highlightFont->background '#EEEEEC88';
 23. $graph->options->highlightFont->border '#000000';
 24. $graph->options->highlightFont->borderWidth 1;
 25. 
 26. // $graph->renderer = new ezcGraphRenderer2d();
 27. 
 28. $graph->renderer->options->barMargin .2;
 29. $graph->renderer->options->barPadding .2;
 30. 
 31. $graph->renderer->options->dataBorder 0;
 32. 
 33. $graph->render