kst(1)

📦 version 3.1.0, in arch rolling

💅 kst(1) — like, the manual page, but make it make sense

okay so first things first: this is the kst page out of the kst manual, section 1 (the "run it in your terminal" section, bestie). bucket list energy: plots scientific data. that's the whole vibe. let's get into it 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

kst — plots scientific data 💖

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

just you, alone, no args:

kst

the "load my saved plot" situation:

kst [ -F DATASOURCE ] [ -f STARTFRAME ] [ -n NUMFRAMES ] [ -s
       FRAMESPERSAMPLE [ -a ] ] kstfile

the "plot this data right now" situation:

kst datasource [ -f STARTFRAME ] [ -n NUMFRAMES ] [ -s
       FRAMESPERSAMPLE [ -a ] ] [ -P PLOTNAME ] [ -A] [ -d ] [ -l ] [ -b
       ] [ -x FIELD ] [ -e FIELD ] [ -r RATE ] [ -y FIELD ] [ -p FIELD ]
       [ -h FIELD ] [ -z FIELD ] [ --png filename ] [ --print filename [
       --landscape | --portrait ] [ --Letter | --A4 ] ]

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

kst is a graphical data plotting tool, and honestly? she also does live data — like, it continuously updates the plot as new data becomes available. real-time icon behavior fr fr 🫶 (the original spells it "contiuously", we're moving on 💀)

you can run kst entirely from inside its GUI, in which case you need literally zero command line arguments. and she's got a powerful wizard for setting up new plots super easily — no cap, that's the word they used. iykyk 🧚

second invocation (the kstfile one): kst loads pre-saved plot specifications from the file kstfile, and can optionally override some of the settings in that file. slay.

third invocation (the datasource one): kst displays plots of the data as directed in the default manner. you can pile on additional datasources on the command line with options for that datasource following it. and here's the key thing bestie — command line options generally apply to all subsequent options unless later overridden. like a group chat rule that sticks until someone says otherwise 💅

⭐ OPTIONS ⭐

  • -A — plot all curves in separate plots
  • -a — average frames (simple mean) when plotting with -s.
  • --A4 — use A4 sized paper for printing. Requires --print.
  • -b — plot as bargraphs.
  • -d — use points when plotting curves.
  • -e FIELD — use FIELD as the magnitude of error bars applied to the next plot.
  • -F datasource — override the datasource indicated in the kstfile and instead use datasource.
  • -f STARTFRAME — begin plotting at STARTFRAME frames into the data. Set to -1 to start at NUMFRAMES from the end of the data.
  • -h FIELD — plot FIELD as a histogram.
  • -l — use lines when plotting curves.
  • --landscape — use landscape orientation for printing. Requires --print.
  • --Letter — use US Letter sized paper for printing. Requires --print.
  • -n NUMFRAMES — plot at most NUMFRAMES frames of data. Set to -1 to indicate all of the data.
  • -P PLOTNAME — plot all plots in the plot named PLOTNAME.
  • -p FIELD — plot FIELD as a power spectrum plot.
  • --png filename — render to a portable network graphics (png) image with file name filename and quit.
  • --portrait — use portrait orientation for printing. Requires --print.
  • --print filename — print the plot to file filename and quit.
  • -s FRAMESPERSAMPLE — plot every FRAMESPERSAMPLE frames when plotting.
  • -x FIELD — use FIELD as the X-axis vector.
  • -y FIELD — plot FIELD as an XY plot.
  • -z FIELD — plot FIELD as an image.
heads up: -r RATE shows up in the synopsis but has no entry in this options list. not me inventing a description for it 🙈 — it's just here in the synopsis, exactly where the original put it.

🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

okay this part is the tutorial arc and honestly it ate 👑

Plot all data in column 2 from data.dat.

kst data.dat -y 2

Same as above, except only read 20 lines, starting at line 10.

kst data.dat -f 10 -n 20 -y 2

also read col 1. One plot per curve.

kst data.dat -f 10 -n 20 -y 1 -y 2

Read col 1 from data2.dat and col 1 from data.dat

kst data.dat -f 10 -n 20 -y 2 data2.dat -y 1

Same as above, except read 40 lines starting at 30 in data2.dat

kst data.dat -f 10 -n 20 -y 2 data2.dat -f 30 -n 40 -y 1

Specify the X vector and error bars: Plot x = col 1 and Y = col 2 and error flags = col 3 from data.dat

kst data.dat -x 1 -e 3 -y 2

Get the X vector from data1.dat, and the Y vector from data2.dat.

kst data1.dat -x 1 data2.dat -y 1

Placement: Plot column 2 and column 3 in plot P1 and column 4 in plot P2

kst data.dat -P P1 -y 2 -y 3 -P P2 -y 4

💀 BUGS 💀

please report bugs to either the kst mailing list at kst@kde.org or to the kde bugzilla under the kst product at http://bugs.kde.org/. and listen — if you can run kst, you can easily report bugs by selecting Bug Report Wizard from the Help menu. the tool literally has a button for it bestie, use it 🫶

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Matthew Truch <matt@truch.net>

🎀 LICENSE 🎀

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the COPYING.DOC file as part of the kst distribution.

kisses bestie, that's the whole page ✨ this was Version 3.1.0, dated 22 February 2011 (yes she's a vintage icon, we respect her) — now go plot something gorgeous 🌸💜

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