Setting the format for two-dimensional data plots University of Hawaii at Manoa College of Engineering The data file section describes the columns that a gnuplot data file can use. Depending on the number of columns, the plotted values can vary. One column: The value is used for the Y value. (The X values start from 0, and are incremented by 1.) Two columns: The values are used for the X and Y values, respectively. Three columns: The first two values are used for the X and Y values, respectively, and the last value is used for a delta value for the point. Four columns: The first two values are the X and Y, respectively, and the last two values are used for the low value of Y and the high value of Y, respectively. Five columns: This fifth column is only used when the boxes or boxerrorbars styles are used, and define the width of the boxes. In addition to these pre-defined formats within the file, you can also specify which columns would be used within the data file with the using option of the plot command. The argument following this is a list of colon-separated columns, and up to 4 columns may be specified for the purposes outlined above. For example, the command plot "datafile" using 5:3:8 would use column 5 for the X value, column 3 for the Y value, and column 8 is the delta value for Y.

Author: Ben Yoshino (ben@wiliki.eng.hawaii.edu) Comments, Questions? | E-mail: webmaster@wiliki.eng.hawaii.edu Last updated on Thursday, August %.1d, 2002 Copyright © 2001 University of Hawai`i, College of Engineering, Computer Facility All rights reserved.