Bar Graph by Month - SAS EG

Question

I am trying to create a bar graph in SAS Enterprise Guide. The graph is Savings by Month. The input Data is

Ref      Date       Savings
A      03JUN2013      1000
A      08JUN2013      2000
A      08JUL2013      1500
A      08AUG2013      300
A      08NOV2013      100
B      09DEC2012      500
B      09MAY2013      400
B      19MAY2013      5999
B      09OCT2013      511
C      15OCT2013      1200
C      01NOV2013      1500

The first step I do is to convert the date into month. The I use PROC MEANS to calculate total savings by month by Ref. Then I create a bar graph. The issue I am getting is the bar graph is not in a sequential order as it should be. Like it is AUG13 JUl13 JUN13 .. etc. instead of JUN JUL AUG.

PROC SQL;
   CREATE TABLE SAVINGS_11 AS 
   SELECT 
      PUT(DATE,monname3.) AS MONTH,
          (DATE) FORMAT=MONNAME3. AS MONTH1,
      MONTH(DATE) AS MONTH2,
      PUT(DATE,MONYY5.) AS MONTH3,
      (DATE) FORMAT=MONYY5. AS MONTH4,
          DATE, 
          REF,  
          SAVINGS

      FROM INPUT;
QUIT;

/* -------------------------------------------------------------------
   Sort data set
   ------------------------------------------------------------------- */
PROC SORT
    DATA=SAVINGS_11(KEEP=SAVINGS MONTH MONTH1 MONTH2 MONTH3 MONTH4 REF)
    OUT=SORT1;
    BY REF;
RUN;
/* -------------------------------------------------------------------
   Run the Means Procedure
   ------------------------------------------------------------------- */
TITLE;
TITLE1 "Summary";
TITLE2 "Results";
FOOTNOTE;
PROC MEANS DATA=SORT1
    NOPRINT
    CHARTYPE
    NOLABELS
    NWAY

        SUM NONOBS  ;
    VAR SAVINGS;
    CLASS MONTH /   ORDER=DATA ASCENDING;
    BY REF;
    ID MONTH1 MONTH2 MONTH3 MONTH4;

OUTPUT  OUT=MEANSUMMARY
        SUM()=

    / AUTONAME AUTOLABEL  WAYS INHERIT
    ;
RUN;
/* -------------------------------------------------------------------
   End of task code.
   ------------------------------------------------------------------- */
RUN; QUIT;
TITLE; FOOTNOTE;

PROC SORT
    DATA=MEANSUMMARY(KEEP=MONTH MONTH2 "SAVINGS_Sum"n REF)
    OUT=SORT2
    ;
    BY REF MONTH2;
RUN;
Axis1
    STYLE=1
    WIDTH=1
    MINOR=NONE


;
Axis2
    STYLE=1
    WIDTH=1


;
TITLE;
TITLE1 "Bar Chart";
FOOTNOTE;
PROC GCHART DATA=SORT2
;
    VBAR 
     MONTH
 /
    SUMVAR="SAVINGS_Sum"n
    CLIPREF
FRAME   LEVELS=ALL
    TYPE=SUM
    INSIDE=SUM
    COUTLINE=BLACK
    RAXIS=AXIS1
    MAXIS=AXIS2
;
    BY REF;
/* -------------------------------------------------------------------
   End of task code.
   ------------------------------------------------------------------- */
RUN; QUIT;
TITLE; FOOTNOTE;

Whatever format I use, the end result is not in a sequential order. Please help.

Answer 1

Your problem is that you're converting the date value to a character variable. MONTH, at least, should be a formatted date variable, not a character variable; so this line:

PUT(DATE,monname3.) AS MONTH,

should be

DATE AS MONTH FORMAT=monname3.,

Most procedures (like PROC MEANS and PROC GPLOT) will respect formats and group by same-formatted values. I don't completely understand why you have 5 month variables all containing different versions of the same thing, so perhaps there are better ways to do what you're doing here.

In particular, if you have SAS 9.2 or later, SGPLOT will probably do this entire process for you without any of the summarization steps.