Controls / RadChart / Features

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Format Expressions

RadChart supports format expressions, which you can use to format the series items labels, axes labels and tooltip texts. Besides the standard, the custom numeric and the date/time format strings, RadChart supports chart specific format mechanism that allows you to insert context-specific data. To do that, use one of the following tokens:

Token Use for Value
#Y Series Items Label, Tooltip DataPoint.YValue
#X Series Items Label, Tooltip DataPoint.XValue
#XCAT Series Items Label, Tooltip DataPoint.XCategory
#HIGH Series Items Label, Tooltip DataPoint.High
#LOW Series Items Label, Tooltip DataPoint.Low
#OPEN Series Items Label, Tooltip DataPoint.Open
#CLOSE Series Items Label, Tooltip DataPoint.Close
#BUBBLESIZE Series Items Label, Tooltip DataPoint.BubbleSize
#LABEL Series Items Label, Tooltip DataPoint.Label
#LEGENDLABEL Series Items Label, Tooltip DataPoint.LegendLabel
#TOOLTIP Series Items Label, Tooltip DataPoint.Tooltip
#SERIESLABEL Series Items Label, Tooltip DataSeries.LegendLabel
#% Series Items Label, Tooltip DataPoint.YValue / (The sum of all YValues in the current data series)
#STSUM Series Items Label, Tooltip Represents the sum of all stacked items for a given index.
#STPERCENT Series Items Label, Tooltip The percent representation of the value of a given item with respect to all stacked items for the respective index.
#DATAITEM. Series Items Label, Tooltip Use it to access the DataPoint.DataItem and read the value from a property of the underlying business object.
#VAL X-Axis, Y-Axis TickPoint.Value. This will work only when formatting axis labels.

As you can see, each token consists of two parts: number sign "#" and name. Additionally, in a curly braces, you can specify the format of the value if needed.

The #DATAITEM token is a special one. It allows you to specify a property name from the underlying object and when the format expression is applied, the #DATAITEM token will be replaced with the value from the corresponding property. The format is: #DATAITEM.. For example, the format expression "#DATAITEM.Description" means, that the value from the property Description will be used.

Besides the format expressions, you can specify how the labels to be formatted by using ChartArea.LabelFormatBehavior. You can select one of the three options: HumanReadable(default), Scientific and None. However, the format expressions override the selected LabelFormatBehavior. More about the label format behavior you can find here.

Specifying Label Formats

The following example demonstrates how to specify a label format expression to customize the axes, the series item labels and the tooltips.

The created chart is bound to a collection of TradeData objects via SeriesMapping/ItemMapping, where the TradeData object has the following structure:

public class TradeData 
{ 
    public string Emission 
    { 
        get; 
        set; 
    } 
    public DateTime FromDate 
    { 
        get; 
        set; 
    } 
    public DateTime ToDate 
    { 
        get; 
        set; 
    } 
    public double Open 
    { 
        get; 
        set; 
    } 
    public double High 
    { 
        get; 
        set; 
    } 
    public double Low 
    { 
        get; 
        set; 
    } 
    public double Close 
    { 
        get; 
        set; 
    } 
    public double Volume 
    { 
        get; 
        set; 
    } 
    public string Comment 
    { 
        get; 
        set; 
    } 
} 

Public Class TradeData 
    Private _Emission As String 
    Public Property Emission() As String 
        Get 
            Return _Emission 
        End Get 
        Set(ByVal value As String) 
            _Emission = value 
        End Set 
    End Property 
 
    Private _FromDate As DateTime 
    Public Property FromDate() As DateTime 
        Get 
            Return _FromDate 
        End Get 
        Set(ByVal value As DateTime) 
            _FromDate = value 
        End Set 
    End Property 
 
    Private _ToDate As DateTime 
    Public Property ToDate() As DateTime 
        Get 
            Return _ToDate 
        End Get 
        Set(ByVal value As DateTime) 
            _ToDate = value 
        End Set 
    End Property 
 
    Private _Open As Double 
    Public Property Open() As Double 
        Get 
            Return _Open 
        End Get 
        Set(ByVal value As Double) 
            _Open = value 
        End Set 
    End Property 
 
    Private _High As Double 
    Public Property High() As Double 
        Get 
            Return _High 
        End Get 
        Set(ByVal value As Double) 
            _High = value 
        End Set 
    End Property 
 
    Private _Low As Double 
    Public Property Low() As Double 
        Get 
            Return _Low 
        End Get 
        Set(ByVal value As Double) 
            _Low = value 
        End Set 
    End Property 
 
    Private _Close As Double 
    Public Property Close() As Double 
        Get 
            Return _Close 
        End Get 
        Set(ByVal value As Double) 
            _Close = value 
        End Set 
    End Property 
 
    Private _Volume As Double 
    Public Property Volume() As Double 
        Get 
            Return _Volume 
        End Get 
        Set(ByVal value As Double) 
            _Volume = value 
        End Set 
    End Property 
 
    Private _Comment As String 
    Public Property Comment() As String 
        Get 
            Return _Comment 
        End Get 
        Set(ByVal value As String) 
            _Comment = value 
        End Set 
    End Property 
End Class

Take a look at the code snippet below and see how to define custom label format strings for your RadChart.

<telerik:RadChart x:Name="radChart"> 
    <telerik:RadChart.DefaultView> 
        <telerik:ChartDefaultView> 
            <telerik:ChartDefaultView.ChartArea> 
                <telerik:ChartArea> 
                    <telerik:ChartArea.AxisX> 
                        <telerik:AxisX DefaultLabelFormat="dd-MMM" LayoutMode="Inside" /> 
                    </telerik:ChartArea.AxisX> 
                    <telerik:ChartArea.AxisY> 
                        <telerik:AxisY DefaultLabelFormat="#VAL{C2}" /> 
                    </telerik:ChartArea.AxisY> 
 
                </telerik:ChartArea> 
            </telerik:ChartDefaultView.ChartArea> 
            <!--  ....  --> 
        </telerik:ChartDefaultView> 
    </telerik:RadChart.DefaultView> 
    <telerik:RadChart.SeriesMappings> 
        <telerik:SeriesMapping LegendLabel="MSFT"> 
            <telerik:SeriesMapping.SeriesDefinition> 
                <telerik:LineSeriesDefinition ItemLabelFormat="#Y{C2}" 
                                              ItemToolTipFormat="High/Low: #DATAITEM.High{C4}/#DATAITEM.Low{C4}&#x0a;Volume: #DATAITEM.Volume{#,###,###,##0}" 
                                              ShowItemLabels="True" 
                                              ShowItemToolTips="True" /> 
            </telerik:SeriesMapping.SeriesDefinition> 
            <telerik:SeriesMapping.ItemMappings> 
                <telerik:ItemMapping DataPointMember="YValue" FieldName="Close" /> 
                <telerik:ItemMapping DataPointMember="XValue" FieldName="FromDate" /> 
            </telerik:SeriesMapping.ItemMappings> 
        </telerik:SeriesMapping> 
    </telerik:RadChart.SeriesMappings> 
</telerik:RadChart> 


RadChart radChart = new RadChart(); 
//.... 
radChart.DefaultView.ChartArea.AxisX.DefaultLabelFormat = "dd-MMM"; 
radChart.DefaultView.ChartArea.AxisX.LayoutMode = AxisLayoutMode.Inside; 
radChart.DefaultView.ChartArea.AxisY.DefaultLabelFormat = "#VAL{C2}"; 
SeriesMapping seriesMapping = new SeriesMapping(); 
seriesMapping.SeriesDefinition = new LineSeriesDefinition(); 
seriesMapping.SeriesDefinition.ShowItemToolTips = true; 
seriesMapping.SeriesDefinition.ItemLabelFormat = "#Y{C2}"; 
seriesMapping.SeriesDefinition.ItemToolTipFormat =  
    "High/Low: #DATAITEM.High{C4}/#DATAITEM.Low{C4}\nVolume: #DATAITEM.Volume{#,###,###,##0}"; 
seriesMapping.ItemMappings.Add( new ItemMapping( "Close", DataPointMember.YValue ) ); 
seriesMapping.ItemMappings.Add( new ItemMapping( "FromDate", DataPointMember.XValue ) ); 
radChart.SeriesMappings.Add( seriesMapping ); 

Dim radChart As New Telerik.Windows.Controls.RadChart() 
'....' 
radChart.DefaultView.ChartArea.AxisX.DefaultLabelFormat = "dd-MMM" 
radChart.DefaultView.ChartArea.AxisX.LayoutMode = AxisLayoutMode.Inside 
radChart.DefaultView.ChartArea.AxisY.DefaultLabelFormat = "#VAL{C2}" 
Dim seriesMapping As New SeriesMapping() 
seriesMapping.SeriesDefinition = New LineSeriesDefinition() 
seriesMapping.SeriesDefinition.ShowItemToolTips = True 
seriesMapping.SeriesDefinition.ItemLabelFormat = "#Y{C2}" 
seriesMapping.SeriesDefinition.ItemToolTipFormat = "High/Low: #DATAITEM.High{C4}/#DATAITEM.Low{C4}" & vbLf & "Volume: #DATAITEM.Volume{#,###,###,##0}" 
seriesMapping.ItemMappings.Add(New ItemMapping("Close", DataPointMember.YValue)) 
seriesMapping.ItemMappings.Add(New ItemMapping("FromDate", DataPointMember.XValue)) 
radChart.SeriesMappings.Add(seriesMapping)

The specified label formats are:

  • The X-Axis format is set to "dd-MMM". It does not use any tokens, just the standard DateTime formatting to show the day and the three letter abbreviation of the month.

  • The Y-Axis uses #VAL token with currency format: "#VAL{C2}". As a result, the label shows the tick's value formatted as currency with two digits after the decimal point.

  • The series item labels are showing the value from the DataPoint.Close property formatted as currency: "#Y{C2}".

  • The tooltip is formatted to show two rows. On the first row, the High and the Low values are shown, while on the second - the volume. When the format string is set declaratively, you have to use " " for new line. When it is set in the code behind - "\n":

  • "High/Low: #DATAITEM.High{C4}/#DATAITEM.Low{C4} Volume: #DATAITEM.Volume{#,###,###,##0}"

  • "High/Low: #DATAITEM.High{C4}/#DATAITEM.Low{C4}\nVolume: #DATAITEM.Volume{#,###,###,##0}"

The result is shown on the image below. Note that the YValue is bound to the Close property of the underlying business object, while the tooltip using the #DATAITEM token extracts the values from from the High, Low and Volume properties and then applies the specified format:   WPF RadChart with Custom Label Format String

The #TOOLTIP token is intended to be used when formatting items labels via ItemLabelFormat. This token returns the value from the DataPoint.Tooltip property. More about tooltip formatting see here.

On the table below you can see some more examples of format expressions:

Expression Result
C4 1234.211
#,##0.00 1,234.21
#VAL{C2} $1,234.21
Open: #OPEN{C2} Open: $1234.21
#%{p} 12.34%
Volume: #DATAITEM.Volume{#,###,##0} Volume: 1,234,567

See Also

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