PLSTART(3plplot)

💫 PLSTART(3plplot) 💫

okay bestie, welcome to the PLplot API corner of the man pages — this one's about plstart, and it's genuinely giving "let me set the whole vibe of your plot before anything else happens" ✨

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🌸 NAME 🌸

plstart — Initialization 🎀 (yes that's the whole name, she's mysterious like that)

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

plstart(devname, nx, ny)

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👑 DESCRIPTION 👑

So plstart is the alternative to plstar(3plplot) for initializing the plotting package 💅 like, plstar is the classic route, but plstart lets you skip the prompting and just say what you want. Main character energy fr.

Here's the deal: you gotta supply the device name keyword for the output device you want as an argument. Those keywords? Same exact ones that plstar(3plplot) prints out — so if you've seen them there, you already know them, iykyk 🫶

But okay, what if things don't go to plan? 😭 If the requested device isn't available, or if the input string is empty, or it begins with a `?`, then you get the prompted start up of plstar(3plplot) instead. So she's got a fallback, she's not gonna leave you stranded 💖

And here's the cute part — this routine also divides the output device page into nx by ny subpages, each of which you can use independently 🎀 Then you use pladv(3plplot) to advance from one subpage to the next, like flipping through a lil scrapbook 🌸

Redacted form: General: plstart(devname, nx, ny)

Heads up bestie: this function is not used in any examples. Not a single one. She's iconic but she's not showing up to the group project 🙈

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✨ ARGUMENTS ✨

• devname (PLCHAR_VECTOR(3plplot), input) — an ascii character string holding the device name keyword of the required output device 🖥️ And listen: if devname is NULL, or if the first character of the string is a `?`, then the normal (prompted) start up is used. That's the escape hatch, slay 💅
• nx (PLINT(3plplot), input) — number of subpages to divide the output page in the x direction ➡️
• ny (PLINT(3plplot), input) — number of subpages to divide the output page in the y direction ⬇️

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💜 AUTHORS 💜

So many developers contributed to PLplot over its long history 😭 and they're all credited right here — go give them their flowers fr fr:

http://plplot.sourceforge.net/credits.php

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

The PLplot documentation lives at:

http://plplot.sourceforge.net/documentation.php

Go read it, it's giving comprehensive 📚✨

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🎀 aaaand that's the page! thanks for reading, bestie 🫶

signing off — this was PLSTART(3plplot) from the PLplot API, dated August, 2026 ⭐ go plot something gorgeous 🦋