How to draw a graph in PHP?

php graphics draw graph-drawing

123,142

Solution 1

pChart is another great PHP graphing library.

Solution 2

<?
# ------- The graph values in the form of associative array
$values=array(
    "Jan" => 110,
    "Feb" => 130,
    "Mar" => 215,
    "Apr" => 81,
    "May" => 310,
    "Jun" => 110,
    "Jul" => 190,
    "Aug" => 175,
    "Sep" => 390,
    "Oct" => 286,
    "Nov" => 150,
    "Dec" => 196
);


$img_width=450;
$img_height=300; 
$margins=20;


# ---- Find the size of graph by substracting the size of borders
$graph_width=$img_width - $margins * 2;
$graph_height=$img_height - $margins * 2; 
$img=imagecreate($img_width,$img_height);


$bar_width=20;
$total_bars=count($values);
$gap= ($graph_width- $total_bars * $bar_width ) / ($total_bars +1);


# -------  Define Colors ----------------
$bar_color=imagecolorallocate($img,0,64,128);
$background_color=imagecolorallocate($img,240,240,255);
$border_color=imagecolorallocate($img,200,200,200);
$line_color=imagecolorallocate($img,220,220,220);

# ------ Create the border around the graph ------

imagefilledrectangle($img,1,1,$img_width-2,$img_height-2,$border_color);
imagefilledrectangle($img,$margins,$margins,$img_width-1-$margins,$img_height-1-$margins,$background_color);


# ------- Max value is required to adjust the scale -------
$max_value=max($values);
$ratio= $graph_height/$max_value;


# -------- Create scale and draw horizontal lines  --------
$horizontal_lines=20;
$horizontal_gap=$graph_height/$horizontal_lines;

for($i=1;$i<=$horizontal_lines;$i++){
    $y=$img_height - $margins - $horizontal_gap * $i ;
    imageline($img,$margins,$y,$img_width-$margins,$y,$line_color);
    $v=intval($horizontal_gap * $i /$ratio);
    imagestring($img,0,5,$y-5,$v,$bar_color);

}


# ----------- Draw the bars here ------
for($i=0;$i< $total_bars; $i++){ 
    # ------ Extract key and value pair from the current pointer position
    list($key,$value)=each($values); 
    $x1= $margins + $gap + $i * ($gap+$bar_width) ;
    $x2= $x1 + $bar_width; 
    $y1=$margins +$graph_height- intval($value * $ratio) ;
    $y2=$img_height-$margins;
    imagestring($img,0,$x1+3,$y1-10,$value,$bar_color);imagestring($img,0,$x1+3,$img_height-15,$key,$bar_color);        
    imagefilledrectangle($img,$x1,$y1,$x2,$y2,$bar_color);
}
header("Content-type:image/png");
imagepng($img);
$_REQUEST['asdfad']=234234;

?>

Solution 3

Your best bet is to look up php_gd2. It's a fairly decent image library that comes with PHP (just disabled in php.ini), and not only can you output your finished images in a couple formats, it's got enough functions that you should be able to do up a good graph fairly easily.

EDIT: it might help if I gave you a couple useful links:

http://www.libgd.org/ - You can get the latest php_gd2 here
http://ca3.php.net/gd - The php_gd manual.

Solution 4

You can use google's chart api to generate charts.

Solution 5

There are a number of libraries available for generating graphs.

Open Flash Cart - Flash based
GraPHPite
JS charts - Javascript based
Libchart

More are listed above and here.

View more solutions

123,142

johnnaples

Updated on July 09, 2022

Comments

johnnaples almost 2 years

Hey I want to draw a graph(Stdent mark distribution) in my site based on PHP. How can I do this?
Sukasa over 15 years

As far as I can tell, gd and gd2 seems to be fairly similar, with gd2 just being a later version (with "2" tacked on to the DLL's filename).
KitzyKitt over 15 years

I have used JPGraph before and the free version of the software is also very good. For the simple problem that needs to be solved I think it will suffice.
Johan over 15 years

Have no idea about any dll's since I apt-get my software ;-)
Elitmiar over 14 years

pChart worked for me, it's a resource rich library and very powerful!!! Thanx John
John McCollum over 14 years

No problem, glad it helped. :)
Koobz over 14 years

Hiccup: It's GPL. No mention of LGPL.
TRiG almost 14 years

GPL is fine for server-side stuff.
h3xStream over 13 years

JPGraph is an excellent lib. Many types of graphs and many options. It is free for non commercial project.
h3xStream over 13 years

GraPHPite is ordinary and is not an active project.
h3xStream over 13 years

Kind of reinventing the wheel.. unless you want to build your own framework.
allencoded almost 12 years

Google Chart Api is client side only now. They use to offer a server side download but that is long gone.
Russ over 10 years

GPL is not fine for server-side stuff if you are re-distributing it to others under a non-GPL-compatible license.
John McCollum over 10 years

They also offer a commercial license now. (I've updated the link to point to the new site, which has the new licensing options.)
Dennis almost 10 years

not sure if it's a useful answer really. Say I want to smooth a curve, add a legend, position legend text at top or bottom, position major tick marks and minor tick marks like so, add a second, third, fourth Y-axis line, etc. Seems like a pain to generate your own chart. This is great for someone who wants to create a charting software, but when it comes to using a charting software, and wants developer speed, this is just too much pain.
Mai about 9 years

Please use <?php ... ?> instead of <? ... ?>.
Tarik over 8 years

Great solution I upvoted but what is $_REQUEST['asdfad']=234234; used for at the end of the script?