Time Axis in Graphs

The time axis in a graph is a horizontal axis that shows date or time information. The graph plots time data along the O1Axis component. The O1TickLabel component represents the time labels, and the O1MajorTick element represents the vertical grid lines in a graph that has a time axis. A time axis automatically displays time data in an appropriate way. For example, in a graph whose group labels include months from more than one year, a second layer of labels identifies the year, as shown in the following graph.

time axis

Notice that the O1MajorTick appears at the year change. The second layer of date information appears automatically as needed.

Graph types that support a time axis

The following graph types can have a time axis:

How to display a time axis

To have the graph display a time axis, you specify the group labels of a graph as java.sql.Date objects, in ascending order. The actual data should be complete and should be in regular intervals. In bar, line, area, and combination graphs, ensure that the time dimension is the only dimension on the group edge of the graph. For stock graphs, ensure that the time dimension is the outer dimension on the edge.

Specifying a time zone

By default, the graph uses the default time zone to display time data. When you display a time axis in an HTML application, the user of the application may be in a different time zone. To specify the time zone that the graph uses, call the setTimeZone method of the graph.

Specifying Data for a Time Axis
Data Requirements for Different Kinds of Graphs