Side by side bars for twoway bar graph

[Peter Amadou]

Hello Statalist,

I am having trouble with something that I thought would be quite basic. I need to compare 3 continuous variables over time using a bar graph. Below is my my example data and code I used to generate the attached graph.

* Example generated by -dataex-. To install: ssc install dataex
clear
input int year float(estimate est_ci_l est_ci_u control1 control2)
2015  87416.73 63665.59 112986.24     . 36537
2016   99954.7 87768.51 111265.88 65682 60565
2017  85363.24 62662.84 105752.55 52759 50769
2018 122436.16 82525.18  158504.7 53547 56494
end



twoway bar estimate year , barw(0.3) || (rcap est_ci_u est_ci_l year) || bar control1 year, barw(0.3) || bar control2 year, barw(0.3)

I have an estimate of interest with its 95% confidence intervals and I need to compare it to two controls that do not have 95% CIs. How can I prevent the bars from being overlaid as above and display them side by side? I have seen in past posts that an offset option can be used but my Stata version 14.2 says the option is not allowed. Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you

[Nick Cox]

There is no offset option in Stata 16.1 either. I suspect the past posts you are alluding to were just based on creating their own offsets directly, as in say

* Example generated by -dataex-. To install: ssc install dataex
clear
input int year float(estimate est_ci_l est_ci_u control1 control2)
2015  87416.73 63665.59 112986.24     . 36537
2016   99954.7 87768.51 111265.88 65682 60565
2017  85363.24 62662.84 105752.55 52759 50769
2018 122436.16 82525.18  158504.7 53547 56494
end


gen year1 = year - 0.2
gen year2 = year + 0.2 

twoway bar estimate year , barw(0.2) base(0) || rcap est_ci_u est_ci_l year || bar control1 year1, barw(0.2) || bar control2 year2, barw(0.2)

[Peter Amadou]

Now I understand. Thank you very much Dr. Cox.