PLAXES(3plplot)

💖 NAME 💖

ok so plaxes — it draws a box with axes and everything, but with an arbitrary origin, bestie. (this page is from the PLplot API manuals, fyi 🫶)

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

plaxes(x0, y0, xopt, xtick, nxsub, yopt, ytick, nysub)

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🎀 DESCRIPTION 🎀

So what it does is: it draws a box around the viewport you've currently defined, except the world-coordinate origin is whatever you want it to be — you set that with x0 and y0 — and then it labels the whole thing with world coordinate values that actually match your window. lowkey iconic. ✨

⚠️ which means plaxes(3plplot) should only be called after you've defined both the viewport and the window. no skipping steps, babe.

The ascii character strings xopt and yopt are the whole vibe-control — they tell it how the box should be drawn (details down in ARGUMENTS, keep scrolling 💅).

And if ticks and/or subticks are getting drawn for a particular axis? You can either spell out the tick intervals and number of subintervals explicitly, or just set the appropriate arguments to zero and let it default them for you. easy. 🍓

Redacted form: General: plaxes(x0, y0, xopt, xtick, nxsub, yopt, ytick, nysub)

And ngl — this function is not used in any examples. 😭 she's a real one but she's not on the demo reel.

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👑 ARGUMENTS 👑

• x0 (PLFLT(3plplot), input) — World X coordinate of the origin. 🦋
• y0 (PLFLT(3plplot), input) — World Y coordinate of the origin. 🦋
• xopt (PLCHAR_VECTOR(3plplot), input) — An ascii character string specifying options for the x axis. It can include any combination of these letters (upper or lower case, in any order), periodt:
  • a — Draws axis. X-axis is the horizontal line (y=0), and Y-axis is the vertical line (x=0).
  • b — Draws the bottom (X) or left (Y) edge of the frame.
  • c — Draws the top (X) or right (Y) edge of the frame.
  • d — Plot labels as date / time. Values are assumed to be seconds since the epoch (as used by gmtime).
  • f — Always use fixed point numeric labels.
  • g — Draws a grid at the major tick interval.
  • h — Draws a grid at the minor tick interval.
  • i — Inverts tick marks, so they're drawn outwards instead of inwards.
  • l — Labels the axis logarithmically. This only affects the labels, not the data — so you gotta compute the logarithms of your data points yourself before passing them to any of the drawing routines. no cap, it won't do it for you 🙈
  • m — Writes numeric labels at major tick intervals in the unconventional location (above box for X, right of box for Y).
  • n — Writes numeric labels at major tick intervals in the conventional location (below box for X, left of box for Y).
  • o — Use a custom labelling function to generate the axis label text. You can define that custom labelling function with the plslabelfunc(3plplot) command. 🧚
  • s — Enables subticks between major ticks — only valid if t is also specified.
  • t — Draws major ticks.
  • u — Exactly like "b" except it doesn't draw the edge line.
  • w — Exactly like "c" except it doesn't draw the edge line.
  • x — Exactly like "t" (including the side effect of the numerical labels for the major ticks) except it excludes drawing the major and minor tick marks.
• xtick (PLFLT(3plplot), input) — World coordinate interval between major ticks on the x axis. If you set it to zero, PLplot automatically generates a suitable tick interval for you. 🫶
• nxsub (PLINT(3plplot), input) — Number of subintervals between major x axis ticks, for the minor ticks. If you set it to zero, PLplot automatically generates a suitable minor tick interval.
• yopt (PLCHAR_VECTOR(3plplot), input) — An ascii character string specifying options for the y axis. It can include any combination of the letters defined above for xopt, and in addition it may contain:
  • v — Write numeric labels for the y axis parallel to the base of the graph, rather than parallel to the axis. 💅
• ytick (PLFLT(3plplot), input) — World coordinate interval between major ticks on the y axis. If you set it to zero, PLplot automatically generates a suitable tick interval.
• nysub (PLINT(3plplot), input) — Number of subintervals between major y axis ticks, for the minor ticks. If you set it to zero, PLplot automatically generates a suitable minor tick interval. 🌸

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🌈 AUTHORS 🌈

So many developers contributed to PLplot over its long history, and they're all credited at http://plplot.sourceforge.net/credits.php — kings and queens, every one of them. 👑

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⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

PLplot documentation at http://plplot.sourceforge.net/documentation.php. go read it, bestie, iykyk 📚

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mwah 💋 that's the whole page — brought to you by the PLplot API gang, dated August, 2026 (and if you saw PLAXES(3plplot) floating around, that's just her full government name 🎀).