XPLOT(1)

XPLOT(1) 💖 General Commands Manual

okay bestie, sit down, hydrate, and let me tell you about xplot — the little plotter that lives in your terminal-adjacent heart. this is the XPLOT(1) page from the General Commands Manual, rewritten with the love it deserves. ✨

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🌸 NAME 🌸

xplot — a simple x-y column data plotter for X. that's it, that's the whole vibe. 💅

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

xplot [-v] [-title 'titlestring'] [-format 'formatstring'] [-y 'yrange']
[-display host:dpy] [-name appname] [-visual class] [-depth d]
[-private] [-shared] [-stdcmap] [-debug l] [-sync] datafiles ...

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so this manual page is a lil quick tour of the xplot command, and ngl it was written for the Debian GNU/Linux distribution using the program's integrated help file — because the original program doesn't even ship a manual page. we're improvising, but make it fashion. 💖

xplot is a small program that plots one- or twodimensional datasets. those datasets can either chill in a file, or be generated on-the-fly and piped straight into XPlot. XPlot lets you display one or more datasets and lets you zoom into different sections of the sets. also, blowups of the currently shown portion of the data can be made. obsessed. 👑

xplot is meant for on-screen data exploration. it does not have a print button, and it is not meant for final output or publication-quality figures. it's giving "let me look at this real quick", not "this is going in the paper". 🫶

xplot is no longer actively maintained upstream. if you would like to take it over, talk to the author: Karel Kubat <karel@icce.rug.nl>. like, actually talk to him. this is your sign. 🌈

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

a summary of options is included below, because of course it is.

• -v — increases verbosity. when this flag is present, XPlot prints information about what files are read and how many points they consist of. it's the "tell me everything" flag. 🗣️
• -title 'titlestring' — defines the title for the plot (can also be set interactively, so you're not locked in).
• -format 'formatstring' — the formatstring FORMAT is used to read in data. if you're familiar with C, then you already know what a formatstring is, bestie. the default formatstring is "%f %f ", meaning XPlot should try to interpret each line as two numbers (%f, for floating point value), separated by one or more whitespace characters. the -format flag can be handy if, e.g., you want to read in a file like

    time 12.0       value 3
    time 12.1       value 4
    time 12.2       value 5

you'd then have a format string

"time %f value %f "

don't forget the trailing blank in the formatstring — it makes sure that the end-of-line character is skipped. no cap, that trailing space is doing heavy lifting. 💅

• -y 'yrange' — this flag lets you specify the range of the Y axis at startup. normally XPlot determines the range from the read data. the YRANGE specifier must be in the form NUMBER:NUMBER (e.g., 0:13), where the first number specifies the lowest value of the Y axis, and the second number specifies the highest value. 📈

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🌟 XFORMS OPTIONS 🌟

XPlot is built with the XForms Graphical User Interface Toolkit for X, and hence supports a number of flags which are interpreted by XForms. the flags must be stated before any file arguments, and they are:

• -display host:dpy — defines the X display. 🖥️
• -name appname — defines the application name.
• -visual class — TrueColor, PseudoColor etc...
• -depth d — visual depth in bits.
• -private — forces a private colormap.
• -shared — forces a shared colormap.
• -stdcmap — forces a standard colormap.
• -debug l — prints debugging information, l is the level. more l, more lore. 🐛
• -sync — forces synchronous mode.

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👑 USING XPLOT 👑

🧚 The XPlot window

the main XPlot window is called the Control window. it lets you select boundaries for the plot, activate or deactivate certain datasets, etc.. see further the subsections, bestie, we're getting there. 🦋

🌸 Boundaries of the plot

the main XPlot window (called Control) shows the datasets in a small plot, surrounded by sliders. two sliders are provided per axis: one selecting the minimum value and one selecting the maximum value. e.g., if you want to see the middle portion of the plot, set the upper horizontal slider (the minimum X value to display) to about 1/3 of its length and set the lower horizontal slider to 2/3 of its length. slay. 🎚️

the boundaries of the plot can furthermore be entered in the input fields, below the small plot.

one last button, labeled Scale Y, affects the sizing of the graph. the button scales the Y axis to contain all points given a certain X range. the scaling of the Y axis is performed over all active datasets (you can also deactivate sets, see the appropriate section — it's right below, i got you). 💖

✨ Selecting and deselecting datasets

when many datasets are plotted, it may be useful to deactivate (or later, reactivate) some of the sets. the button which is labeled (De)activate sets, on the right hand side of the control window, starts a small window (called the activator), showing an overview of the plotted sets. the names of the active sets are prefixed with [+], the inactive sets are prefixed with [-]. clicking on the line with a name of a dataset toggles the activity: an active set becomes inactive and v.v.. 💫

initially, all datasets are active (i.e., displayed).

the activator stays on-screen until you click the dismiss button of the activator window. it's clingy like that. 🙈

🔥 Making larger plots: blowups

the buttons static blowup and dynamic blowup in the control window start a blowup of the current plot: i.e. using the current borders and currently active sets. the blown up graph is dismissed by clicking in the blowup window. the blown up graph can be resized, e.g., to grab its contents in a paint program. 🎨

the difference between a static and a dynamic blowup is the following. a static blowup will remain to show the plotted data even when you, e.g., deactivate a set or change the boundaries. a static blowup is handy when e.g. you want to compare one part of the data with another part: make a static plot of the first part, move to the second part, and compare. in contrast, a dynamic plot redraws its data whenever necessary; therefore, it is an enlargement of the plot in the control window.

XPlot can create an unlimited number of blowups: that way, you can simultaneously view different sets with different boundaries in different blowups.. go off, honestly. 🌈

💜 Line types of the plots

the radio buttons labelled Line types, on the right hand side of the control window, select the line types for the plotting of the datasets. all sets are plotted in the same style. one style to rule them all.

the default style, solid or circles, plots a set either with a solid line, or with a solid line and circles on the separate points. the points are plotted when the graph contains less than 20 points: the idea here is that the presence of circles obfuscates a graph when more than 20 circles would be present in the graph. we keep it readable, periodt. ⭕

other styles force either solid lines, solid lines with circles, or solid lines with squares. ⬜

🍓 Postponed or immediate plotting

the button labeled Auto-redraw, on the right hand side of the Control window, selects whether XPlot should redo a plot when any change occurs (e.g., when the boundaries are altered or when a linestyle is defined). initially, auto-redraw is on. 🔁

setting auto-redraw to off is a good idea when you are plotting large datasets. the reason for this is that the replotting of all sets (e.g., when sliding one of the boundary sliders) may take too long. in this case, you can disable the automatic redrawing, and manually redraw the plot when you are satisfied with all necessary changes. the manual redraw is always done when you press the button labeled Redraw now. 😌

🎀 Plot titles

the input field labeled Title, below the small plot on the Control window, lets you enter a title for the plot. XPlot's title facility is restricted to one title, which is also used in blowups. you might want to define a title, make a blowup, and dump it to say a printer using xwd and related programs. 🖨️

💀 Quitting XPlot

the button labelled dismiss on the XPlot control window removes the control window from the screen. the XPlot program will only terminate when no blowups are on-screen. to quit XPlot, you need to remove all blowups (by clicking on them) and to click the dismiss button of the control window. yes, you have to close every single one. it's giving "are you sure you're done". 😭

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⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

this text is also available as on-line help by pressing xplot's Help/About button. 💖

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🫶 AUTHOR 🫶

xplot V1.18 Copyright (c) ICCE / Karel Kubat 1995

this manual page by Peter S Galbraith <psg@debian.org> using info from /usr/share/xplot/xplot.help for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others). 🩷

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and that's the whole page, bestie! this was the XPLOT(1) entry from the General Commands Manual — xplot V1.18, Copyright (c) ICCE / Karel Kubat 1995, page written by Peter S Galbraith <psg@debian.org> from /usr/share/xplot/xplot.help for Debian GNU/Linux. no date on the footer, just the name and the legend itself. go plot something iconic. 💅✨👑