ChartDirector charts often contain a lot of text strings. For example, sector labels in pie charts, axis labels for x and y axes, data labels for the data points, HTML image maps, etc, are all text strings.

ChartDirector uses parameter substitution to allow you to configure precisely the information contained in the text and their format.

For example, when drawing a pie chart with side label layout, the default sector label format is:


In drawing the sector labels, ChartDirector will replace "{label}" with the sector name, and "{percent}" with the sector percentage. So the above label format will result is a sector label similar to "ABC (34.56%)".

If you want to change the sector label format by changing the format string. For example, you can change it to:


The sector value will then become something like "ABC: US$123 (35.56%)".

In general, in ChartDirector parameter substitution, fields enclosed by curly brackets will be substituted with their actual values when creating the texts.

ChartDirector supports parameter expressions. They are fields enclosed by curly brackets and starts with the "=" character. For example:


In the above, "{value}" will be substituted with the actual value of the sector. The expression "{={value}*0.9}" will be substituted with the actual value of the sector multiplied by 0.9.

ChartDirector parameter expressions support operators "+", "-", "*", "/" and "^" (exponentiation). Operators "*", "/", "^" is computed first, followed by "+" and "-". Operators of the same precedence are computed from left to right). Parenthesis "(" and ")" can be used to change the computation order.

For fields that are numbers or dates/times, ChartDirector supports a special syntax in parameter substitution to allow formatting for these values. Please refer to the Number Formatting and Date/Time Formatting sections below for details.

The following tables descirbe the fields available for various chart objects.

Parameter	Description
sector	The sector number. The first sector is 0, while the nth sector is (n-1).
dataSet	Same as {sector}. See above.
label	The text label of the sector.
dataSetName	Same as {label}. See above.
value	The data value of the sector.
percent	The percentage value of the sector.
field{N}	The (N + 1)th extra field (the first extra field is field0).

The followings are parameters that are apply to all XY Chart layers in general. Some layer types may have additional parameters (see below).

Note that certain parameters are inapplicable in some context. For example, when specifying the aggregate label of a stacked bar chart, the {dataSetName} parameter is inapplicable. It is because a stacked bar is composed of multiple data sets. It does not belong to any particular data set and hence does not have a data set name.

Parameter	Description
x	The x value of the data point. For an enumerated x-axis (see Axis.setLabels on what is an enumerated axis), the first data point is 0, and the nth data point is (n-1).
xLabel	The bottom x-axis label of the data point.
x2Label	The top x-axis label of the data point.
value	The value of the data point.
accValue	The accumulative value of the data point. This is useful for stacked charts, such as stacked bar chart and stacked area chart.
totalValue	The total value of all data points. This is useful for stacked charts, such as stacked bar chart and stacked area chart.
percent	The percentage of the data point based on the total value of all data points.
accPercent	The accumulated percentage of the data point based on the total value of all data points. This is useful for stacked charts, such as stacked bar chart and stacked area chart.
dataSet	The data set number to which the data point belongs. The first data set is 0. The nth data set is (n-1).
dataSetName	The name of the data set to which the data point belongs.
dataItem	The data point number within the data set. The first data point is 0. The nth data point is (n-1).
dataGroup	The data group number to which the data point belongs. The first data group is 0. The nth data group is (n-1).
dataGroupName	The name of the data group to which the data point belongs.
layerId	The layer number to which the data point belongs. The first layer is 0. The nth layer is (n-1).
field{N}	The (N + 1)th extra field (the first extra field is field0), assuming the extra field is associated with data items. In other words, the Pth data item corresponds to the Pth element of the extra field.
diField{N}	Same as field{N}. See above.
dsField{N}	The (N + 1)th extra field (the 1st extra field is dsField0), assuming the extra field is associated with data sets. In other words, the Pth data set corresponds to the Pth element of the extra field.
dsdiField{N}	Expand to an extra field element, assuming the extra fields are indexed by both the data set and data item. The Pth data item of the Qth data set will corresponds to the Pth element of the (N + Q)th extra field.

The followings are parameters that are in additional to the parameters for all XY Chart layers.

Parameter	Description
high	The high value of the data representation.
low	The low value of the data representation.
open	The open value of the data representation.
close	The close value of the data representation.

The followings are parameters that are in additional to the parameters for all XY Chart layers.

Parameter	Description
top	The value of the top edge of the box-whisker symbol.
bottom	The value of the bottom edge of the box-whisker symbol.
max	The value of the maximum mark of the box-whisker symbol.
min	The value of the minimum mark of the box-whisker symbol.
med	The value of the median mark of the box-whisker symbol.

The followings are parameters that are in additional to the parameters for all XY Chart layers.

Parameter	Description
slope	The slope of the trend line.
intercept	The y-intercept of the trend line.
corr	The correlation coefficient in linear regression analysis.
stderr	The standard error in linear regression analysis.

Parameter	Description
radius	The radial value of the data point.
value	Same as {radius}. See above.
angle	The angular value of the data point.
x	Same as {angle}. See above.
label	The angular label of the data point.
xLabel	Same as {label}. See above.
name	The name of the layer to which the data point belongs.
dataSetName	Same as {name}. See above.
i	The data point number. The first data point is 0. The nth data point is (n-1).
dataItem	Same as {i}. See above.

Parameter	Description
value	The axis value at the tick position.

For parameters that are numbers, ChartDirector supports a number of formatting options in parameter substitution.

For example, if you want a numeric field {value} to have a precision of two digits to the right of the decimal point, use ',' (comma) as the thousand separator, and use '.' (dot) as the decimal point, and you may use {value|2,.}. The number 123456.789 will then be displayed as 123,456.79.

For numbers, the formatting options are specified using the following syntax:


where:

Parameter	Description
[param]	The name of the parameter
[a]	An integer specifying the number of digits to the right of the decimal point. The default is automatic. To use the default, simply skip this parameter.
[b]	The thousand separator. Should be a non-alphanumeric character (not 0-9, A-Z, a-z). Use '~' for no thousand separater. The default is '~', which can be modified using BaseChart.setNumberFormat.
[c]	The decimal point character. The default is '.', which can be modified using BaseChart.setNumberFormat.
[d]	The negative sign character. Use '~' for no negative sign character. The default is '-', which can be modified using BaseChart.setNumberFormat.

You may skip the trailing formatting options if they are needed. For example, {value|2} means formatting the value with two digits to the right, where the thousand separator, decimail point character, and negative sign character are all using the default settings of the chart.

For parameters that are dates/times, the formatting options can be specified using the following syntax:


where [datetime_format_string] must start with an english character (A-Z or a-z), and may contain any characters except '}'. Certain characters are substituted according to the following table:

Parameter	Description
yyyy	The year in 4 digits (e.g. 2002)
yyy	The year showing only the least significant 3 digits (e.g. 002 for the year 2002)
yy	The year showing only the least significant 2 digits (e.g. 02 for the year 2002)
y	The year showing only the least significant 1 digits (e.g. 2 for the year 2002)
mmm	The month formatted as its name. The default is to use the first 3 characters of the english month name (Jan, Feb, Mar ...). The names can be configured using BaseChart.setMonthNames.
mm	The month formatted as 2 digits from 01 - 12, adding leading zero if necessary.
m	The month formatted using the minimum number of digits from 1 - 12.
dd	The day of month formatted as 2 digits from 01 - 31, adding leading zero if necessary.
d	The day of month formatted using the minimum number of digits from 1 - 31.
w	The name of the day of week. The default is to use the first 3 characters of the english day of week name (Sun, Mon, Tue ...). The names can be configured using BaseChart.setWeekDayNames.
hh	The hour of day formatted as 2 digits, adding leading zero if necessary. The 2 digits will be 00 - 23 if the 'a' option (see below) is not specified, otherwise it will be 00 - 12.
h	The hour of day formatted using the minimum number of digits. The digits will be 0 - 23 if the 'a' option (see below) is not specified, otherwise it will be 0 - 12.
nn	The minute formatted as 2 digits from 00 - 59, adding leading zero if necessary.
n	The minute formatted using the minimum number of digits from 00 - 59.
ss	The second formatted as 2 digits from 00 - 59, adding leading zero if necessary.
s	The second formatted using the minimum number of digits from 00 - 59.
a	Display either 'am' or 'pm', depending on whether the time is in the morning or afternoon. The text 'am' and 'pm' can be modified using BaseChart.setAMPM.

For example, a parameter substitution format of {value|mm-dd-yyyy} will display a date as something similar to 09-15-2002. A format of {value|dd/mm/yy hh:nn:ss a} will display a date as something similar to 15/09/02 03:04:05 pm.