Hi all,

For reasons that aren't really worth going into, I'm trying to reproduce the algorithm that Stata uses to automatically label plot axes. I understand from here and here that the first bit of the algorithm is to start with the range of the variable and divide it into (about) 5 equally spaced labels. But I think there are other steps n the process, because it also always chooses round numbers (at an appropriate order of magnitude) to display. I'm wondering, is there a command that will produce these values for you automatically for any variable? Or a standard algorithm I could implement?

My instinct was to calculate the range of the variable and divide it into 5 groups, and then maybe use the size of those groups and the floor function in some combination to determine the right level of rounding. By I'm a little stuck at that point. Any thoughts or guidance?