Histogram, by() and graph region color

[Tom WallaceA]

Hello,

I've recently discovered the by() option can be used with histogram (after the comma rather than bysort before the command) to quickly split graphs by groups. However I often use the graphregion(color()) command for publishing reasons and I've found that it doesn’t work with histogram, by() for some reason. It doesn’t give any sort of error it just doesn’t change the color. I can get around it using loops and graph combine but it’s an annoying little niggle in what should be a convenience feature – can anyone shed any light on this issue?

[Nick Cox]

You don't show us any code to comment on (FAQ Advice #12). But the following may show you what you're doing wrong.

sysuse auto, clear
set scheme s1color
histogram mpg, by(foreign) freq
histogram mpg, by(foreign) freq graphregion(color(gs15))
histogram mpg, by(foreign, graphregion(color(gs15))) freq

FWIW, I don't find it easy to remember or even to understand when options are tucked inside by() and when not.

[Tom WallaceA]

Hi Nick,

Thanks for the answer - that's solved it for me! I didn't even know you could put options inside by()

Sorry for the code omission, I would provide some now but your last example above was exactly what I was after.