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A chart is a presentation of a table, not a separate kind of value. You display a table variable as a chart by giving it the bar_chart or pie_chart display type (see Defining variables). The variable’s value stays a table — the chart only changes how that table is shown.

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Bar charts

A bar_chart plots the values of a table as bars. You configure:
  • Series orientation — whether each series is a column or a row of the table. A schedule with a payment column and a balance column, plotted by column, becomes two series.
  • Stacking — whether the series are drawn side by side or stacked into a single bar per group.
  • Labels — where the bar labels come from: the row index, or the first series of the table, starting from a series index you set.
  • Series format — for each series, a name, a display type, and a decimal format, the same scalar formatting a column uses.

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Pie charts

A pie_chart plots a table’s values as slices of a whole. You configure:
  • Slice names — optional labels for the slices.
  • Decimal format — the precision applied to the values shown.
A pie chart is suited to parts of a single total — principal versus interest, a budget split across categories — where a bar chart is suited to comparing values across a series.

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Mixed units in a chart

When the column behind a chart holds values in different units of the same dimension — 3 ft, 4 in, and 5 yd in one column, say — the chart draws every bar or slice to a single common unit, so their sizes are proportioned honestly rather than taken from the raw numbers. Each label and tooltip still shows the value’s original unit, so the 4 in bar reads 4 in even though it is drawn on a ft axis. The common unit is the first cell’s unit, and a pie chart’s percentages are taken from those common-unit magnitudes. This needs no authoring action — a mixed-unit column charts correctly on its own. To pin the axis to a particular unit instead of the first cell’s, cast the column to that unit in the chart variable’s equation; casting converts the data, so the labels then show the unit you chose. If a column instead mixes different dimensions — a length and a mass, say — there is no common axis to draw against, so the chart shows a short message naming the conflicting unit types rather than a misleading chart. Keep a chart’s column to a single dimension.

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The chart is a view of the table

Because a chart is display configuration over a table, the data behind it is authored, supplied, and returned as a table in every case: you build it from a table variable, users provide its values through structured-text input, and a calculation returns it as a table in the result. Choosing a chart over a grid is purely a presentation decision — the math is unchanged.