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Gnuplot

by Anu Rao

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Running Gnuplot

To run gnuplot, at the Unix prompt simply type

gnuplot

To access gnuplot's online help, at the gnuplot prompt type

gnuplot> help

There are handy examples that come with the gnuplot distribution. On the Linux systems, they are in the "/usr/share/doc/gnuplot-3.7.3/demo" directory (version number may change). To view these demos, you must be running the X11 window system and have changed ("cd" command) to the above demo location directory. In an xterm (or other such) window, run gnuplot and enter the gnuplot command, load "all.dem", at the gnuplot prompt.

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Gnuplot Examples

We have some sample gnuplot scripts available online:

• rs1.gnu and mydata.dat (data generated by mydata.c); a simple xy plot with title, axes labels
• rs2.gnu and sierp.dat (data generated by sierp.c); results in a plot of data points with no connecting lines,axes, axes, or labels

Once you save these examples to your directory, you can run the scripts yourself. For example, to run the rs1.gnu example, copy the rs1.gnu and mydata.dat files to your directory. Run gnuplot; at the gnuplot prompt type

gnuplot> load "rs1.gnu"

and a separate window with the plot will pop up.

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Helpful Hints/Notes for Gnuplot

• To view the Gnuplot Manual, at the Unix prompt type

  ghostview /usr/local/doc/handouts/gnuplot.manual.ps

  To view the online Tutorial, at the Unix prompt type

  ghostview /usr/local/doc/handouts/gnuplot.tutorial.ps

• To print a graph plotted using gnuplot: at the gnuplot prompt, before you type your plot command, type

  gnuplot> set term postscript
gnuplot> set output "name.ps"

  and your graph will be written to the postscript file name.ps. To change back to screen viewing, type

  gnuplot> set term x11

• Gnuplot is freeware, available for many platforms.
• Some handy web sites for gnuplot:
  • The Official Gnuplot site.
  • Gnuplot FAQ from Denmark...