gnuplot-beta

Delete files after use possible?

[Daniel J S. <dan...@ie...>]

Is it possible, or would it be a useful feature for gnuplot to have a datafile 
mode setting for which data files are deleted after they have been read and are 
no longer required for gnuplot's use?  A complaint from someone using Octave was 
that temporary image files used to send data to gnuplot were hanging around 
until the app exits and that disk space ran out.  There are options available 
now to put all data through the pipe so that files are no longer necessary, but 
I'm still inquiring if generally speaking it would be good to have such a thing, 
e.g.,

set datafile discard
set datafile temporary

?

I guess another approach is for the app to somehow wait on gnuplot finishing 
it's plot request.  Should that be the preferred use?

Dan

Re: Delete files after use possible?

[Daniel J S. <dan...@ie...>]

Hans-Bernhard Bröker wrote:
> Daniel J Sebald wrote:
> 
>> Is it possible, or would it be a useful feature for gnuplot to have a 
>> datafile mode setting for which data files are deleted after they have 
>> been read and are no longer required for gnuplot's use?  
> 
> 
> So what exactly is keeping them from issuing a "! rm file" into 
> gnuplot's command queue directly after the "plot" command?

Ah, interesting.  Not sure that is portable, but I will toss that idea to the 
discussion list.  Thanks.

Dan

Re: Delete files after use possible?

[Petr M. <mi...@mo...>]

> >> Is it possible, or would it be a useful feature for gnuplot to have a 
> >> datafile mode setting for which data files are deleted after they have 
> >> been read and are no longer required for gnuplot's use?  
> >
> > So what exactly is keeping them from issuing a "! rm file" into 
> > gnuplot's command queue directly after the "plot" command?

That's exactly how I do it in Octave, e.g.

tmpfile=tmpnam;
savegpbin(x, y, z, tmpfile);
gpbin2png(out_file, tmpfile);
graw( sprintf("!rm -f %s\n", tmpfile) );

But note that you cannot do "replot".

---
PM

Re: Delete files after use possible?

[Daniel J S. <dan...@ie...>]

Petr Mikulik wrote:

> That's exactly how I do it in Octave, e.g.
> 
> tmpfile=tmpnam;
> savegpbin(x, y, z, tmpfile);
> gpbin2png(out_file, tmpfile);
> graw( sprintf("!rm -f %s\n", tmpfile) );
> 
> But note that you cannot do "replot".

Good point, but I don't think it will matter much in Octave's new setup as data 
is redone each time a plot is redrawn.  Not sure.

Dan