1 2The Gnuplot Plotting Utility 3**************************** 4 5 Gnuplot is a command-line driven interactive function plotting utility 6for linux, OSX, MSWin, VMS, and many other platforms. The software is 7copyrighted but freely distributed (i.e., you don't have to pay for it). 8It was originally intended as graphical program to allow scientists 9and students to visualize mathematical functions and data. Gnuplot 10supports many different types of terminals, plotters, and printers 11(including many color devices, and pseudo-devices like LaTeX) and is 12easily extensible to include new devices. 13 14 The "GNU" in gnuplot is NOT related to the Free Software Foundation, 15the naming is just a coincidence (and a long story; see the gnuplot FAQ 16for details). Thus gnuplot is not covered by the GPL (GNU Public License) 17copyleft, but rather by its own copyright statement, included in all source 18code files. However, some of the associated drivers and support utilities 19are dual-licensed. 20 21 Gnuplot handles both curves (2 dimensions) and surfaces (3 dimensions). 22Surfaces can be plotted as a mesh fitting the specified function, floating 23in the 3-d coordinate space, or as a contour plot on the x-y plane. 24For 2-d plots, there are also many plot styles including lines, points, 25boxes, heat maps, stacked histograms, and contoured projections of 3D data. 26Graphs may be labeled with arbitrary labels and arrows, axis labels, 27a title, date and time, and a key. The interface includes command-line 28editing and history on most platforms. 29 30 The new gnuplot user should begin by reading the general information 31available by typing `help` after running gnuplot. Then read about the 32`plot` command (type `help plot`). The manual for gnuplot (which is a 33nicely formatted version of the on-line help information) is available 34as a PDF document, created via LaTeX. Look at the docs/Makefile 35for other options for formatting the documentation. 36 37 The gnuplot source code and executables may be copied and/or modified 38freely as long as the copyright messages are left intact. 39 40Copyright and Porting 41===================== 42 43 See the Copyright file for copyright conditions. 44 45 Build instructions are in the INSTALL file. Some additional 46information needed to port gnuplot to new platforms not covered by 47GNU autoconf can be found in the PORTING file. 48 49 The code for gnuplot was written with portability in mind, and has been 50run on an amazing variety of operating systems and hardware over the years. 51However, the current code has not been tested on all those older platforms 52and some of the conditional code to support quirks of obsolete compilers 53and OS features has been removed. You can expect that gnuplot will compile 54more or less out of the box on any system which has the GNU C compiler gcc 55or other ANSI-compliant C compiler. Some specific [optional] drivers are 56written in C++ or lua. 57 58 59Help and Bug Reports 60******************** 61 62 Your primary place to go searching for help with gnuplot should 63be the project's webpage. At the time of this writing, that's 64 65 http://gnuplot.sourceforge.net 66 67 It has links to a lot of material, including the project's development 68page, also at SourceForge: 69 70 http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnuplot/ 71 72 Note that since gnuplot has nothing to do with the GNU project, please 73don't ask them for help or information about gnuplot; also, please 74don't ask us about GNU stuff. 75 76 Please note that all bug reports should include the machine you are 77using, the operating system and it's version, plotting devices, and 78the version of gnuplot that you are running. If you could add such 79information to any messages on the Usenet newsgroup or the other 80mailing lists and trackers, that'd be nice, too. 81 82 83Usenet 84====== 85 86 Additional help can be obtained from the USENET newsgroup 87 88 comp.graphics.apps.gnuplot. 89 90 This newsgroup is the first place to ask for routine help. It used to be 91gatewayed bi-directionally to the info-gnuplot mailing list, but that 92had to be stopped when we moved the mailing lists off Dartmouth. 93 94 95Mailing Lists 96============= 97 98 As of gnuplot-4.0, the gnuplot mailing lists have moved away from 99their old home at Dartmouth College (thanks, guys!) to the project's 100general new development site provided by SourceForge.net. To 101subscribe to these new mailing lists, use the Web Interface provided 102by SourceForge.net: 103 104 http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=2055 105 106 The main lists you may be interested in are "gnuplot-info" and 107"gnuplot-bugs". "gnuplot-info" is for general discussion and 108questions about how to use the program. But as noted above, 109using the Usenet newsgroup for this kind of communication is 110almost certainly better both for you and for us. 111 112 "gnuplot-bugs" is NOT an appropriate place to ask questions on how to 113solve a gnuplot problem or even to report a bug that you haven't 114investigated personally. It is far more likely you'll get the help 115you need for this kind of problem from comp.graphics.apps.gnuplot 116or the gnuplot-info mailing list. 117 118 Using "gnuplot-bugs" is also slightly disfavoured, because it makes it 119hard for us to keep track what bugs are currently under investigation, 120and hard for you to check if maybe the bug you've found has already 121been reported by somebody else before. We would thus like to ask to 122you please use the "Bug Tracker" system that is part of gnuplot's 123development web site at SourceForge.net instead of this mailing list. 124 125 If you found a fix already, pleast post it in "diff -c" or "diff -u" 126format done against the most current official version of gnuplot or 127the latest alpha or beta release of the next version. All major 128modifications should include documentation and, if new features were 129added, a demo file. Finally, it is much easier to integrate smaller 130stepwise modifications rather than one gigantic diff file which 131represented months of changes. 132 133 There are separate tracking systems for Feature Requests and proposed 134patches that implement new features, also hosted at SourceForge. 135 136 Discussions about plans for new features or other significant changes 137should be announced and discussed on the developers' mailing list, 138gnuplot-beta, which is also hosted by SourceForge.net. 139 140 141Where to get updates to gnuplot 142=============================== 143 144 Congratulations on getting this version of gnuplot! Unfortunately, it 145may not be the most recent version ("you never know where this version 146has been!"). You can be sure that it IS the most recent version by 147checking one of the official distribution sites, guaranteed to be kept 148up to date (of course, if you got this file from one of those sites, 149you don't need to check!). 150 151 To hear automatically about future releases (and other gnuplot news), 152read the newsgroup; see above. 153 154---- 155 156 -Thomas Williams- 157 -Alex Woo- 158 -David Denholm- 159 -Lars Hecking- 160 -Ethan Merritt- 161