PyXPlot Users' Guide
PyXPlot Users’ Guide
A Command-line Plotting Package,
with Interface similar to that of Gnuplot,
which produces
Publication-Quality Output.
Version 0.7.1
Dominic Ford, Ross Church
Email:
coders@pyxplot.org.uk
November 2009
1 Introduction
1.1 Overview
1.2 System Requirements
1.3 Installation
1.3.1 Installation within Linux Distributions
1.3.2 Installation as User
1.3.3 System-wide Installation
1.4 Credits
1.5 Legal Blurb
2 First Steps With PyXPlot
2.1 Getting Started
2.2 First Plots
2.3 Printing Text
2.4 Axis Labels and Titles
2.5 Operators and Functions
2.6 Plotting Data files
2.7 Directing Where Output Goes
2.8 Setting the Size of Output
2.9 Data Styles
2.10 Setting Axis Ranges
2.11 Function Fitting
2.12 Interactive Help
2.13 Shell Commands
2.14 Differences Between PyXPlot and Gnuplot
3 PyXPlot and the Outside World
3.1 Command Line Switches
3.2 Command Histories
3.3 Reading data from a pipe
3.4 Formatting and Terminals
3.5 Paper Sizes
3.6 Script Watching: pyxplot_watch
3.7 Variables
3.8 The
exec
command
4 Advanced Plotting
4.1 A Tour of PyXPlot’s Plot Styles
4.1.1 Lines and Points
4.1.2 Upper and Lower Limit Data Points
4.1.3 Drawing Arrows
4.1.4 Error Bars
4.1.5 Plotting Functions with Errorbars, Arrows, or More
4.2 Barcharts and Histograms
4.2.1 Basic Operation
4.2.2 Stacked Bar Charts
4.2.3 Steps
4.3 Choosing which Data to Plot
4.4 Horizontally arranged Data files
4.5 Configuring Axes
4.6 Keys and Legends
4.7 The
linestyle
Keyword
4.8 Colour Plotting
4.9 Plotting Many Files at Once
4.10 Backing Up Over-Written Files
5 Labelling Plots and Producing Galleries
5.1 Adding Arrows and Text Labels to Plots
5.1.1 Arrows
5.1.2 Text Labels
5.2 Gridlines
5.3 Multi-plotting
5.3.1 Deleting, Moving and Changing Plots
5.3.2 Listing Items on a Multiplot
5.3.3 Linked Axes
5.3.4 Text Labels, Arrows and Images
5.3.5 Speed Issues
5.3.6 The
refresh
command
5.4 LaTeX and PyXPlot
6 Numerical Analysis
6.1 Function Splicing
6.2 Datafile Interpolation: Spline Fitting
6.3 Tabulating Functions and Slicing Data Files
6.4 Numerical Integration and Differentiation
6.5 Histograms
7 Configuring PyXPlot
7.1 Overview
7.2 Configuration Files
7.3 An Example Configuration File
7.4 Configuration Options:
settings
section
7.5 Configuration Options:
terminal
section
7.6 Recognised Colour Names
8 Command Reference
8.1 ?
8.2 !
8.3 arrow
8.4 cd
8.5 clear
8.6 delete
8.7 edit
8.8 eps
8.9 exec
8.10 exit
8.11 fit
8.12 help
8.13 histogram
8.14 history
8.15 jpeg
8.16 list
8.17 load
8.18 move
8.19 plot
8.19.1 axes
8.19.2 with
8.20 print
8.21 pwd
8.22 quit
8.23 refresh
8.24 replot
8.25 reset
8.26 save
8.27 set
8.27.1 arrow
8.27.2 autoscale
8.27.3 axescolour
8.27.4 axis
8.27.5 backup
8.27.6 bar
8.27.7 binorigin
8.27.8 binwidth
8.27.9 boxfrom
8.27.10 boxwidth
8.27.11 data style
8.27.12 display
8.27.13 dpi
8.27.14 fontsize
8.27.15 function style
8.27.16 grid
8.27.17 gridmajcolour
8.27.18 gridmincolour
8.27.19 key
8.27.20 keycolumns
8.27.21 label
8.27.22 linestyle
8.27.23 linewidth
8.27.24 logscale
8.27.25 multiplot
8.27.26 mxtics
8.27.27 mytics
8.27.28 noarrow
8.27.29 noaxis
8.27.30 nobackup
8.27.31 nodisplay
8.27.32 nogrid
8.27.33 nokey
8.27.34 nolabel
8.27.35 nolinestyle
8.27.36 nologscale
8.27.37 nomultiplot
8.27.38 notitle
8.27.39 noxtics
8.27.40 noytics
8.27.41 origin
8.27.42 output
8.27.43 palette
8.27.44 papersize
8.27.45 pointlinewidth
8.27.46 pointsize
8.27.47 preamble
8.27.48 samples
8.27.49 size
8.27.50 style
8.27.51 terminal
8.27.52 textcolour
8.27.53 texthalign
8.27.54 textvalign
8.27.55 title
8.27.56 width
8.27.57 xlabel
8.27.58 xrange
8.27.59 xticdir
8.27.60 xtics
8.27.61 ylabel
8.27.62 yrange
8.27.63 yticdir
8.27.64 ytics
8.28 show
8.29 spline
8.30 tabulate
8.31 text
8.32 undelete
8.33 unset
A Colour Tables
B Line and Point Types
C Other Applications of PyXPlot
C.1 Conversion of JPEG Images to Postscript
C.2 Inserting Equations in Powerpoint Presentations
C.3 Delivering Talks in PyXPlot
C.3.1 Setting up Infrastructure
C.3.2 Writing A Short Example Talk
C.3.3 Delivering your Talk
D The
fit
Command: Mathematical Details
D.1 Notation
D.2 The Probability Density Function
D.3 Estimating the Error in
D.4 The Covariance Matrix
D.5 The Correlation Matrix
D.6 Finding
E ChangeLog
2009 Nov 17: PyXPlot 0.7.1
2008 Oct 14: PyXPlot 0.7.0
2007 Feb 26: PyXPlot 0.6.3
2006 Sep 09: PyXPlot 0.5.8
F Index
PyXPlot Users' Guide