Re: Library version of gnuplot [was: gnuplot projects, terminal modules]

[Jonathan T. <jt...@ae...>]

On Fri, 9 Mar 2007, Timothée Lecomte wrote:
> Currently, it's tricky to include a gnuplot graph in a data acquisition
> program (I mean in the same window, of course), it's unnatural to use
> gnuplot from another language than gnuplot native one (think python,
> ruby),

I do this latter thing quite often from Perl, with (I think) no particular
difficulty:  My Perl program generates/manipulates some data files,
generates a gnuplot script which references those data files, then
invokes gnuplot on that script.  Admittedly, these aren't _interactive_
plots (they're typically 'set term postscript' followed by invoking
ps2pdf) -- I've never tried invoking an interactive gnuplot terminal
from a program.

I could certainly _imagine_ a direct gnuplot-api, sort of like there's
a Perl/Tk binding to the Tk widget set (the "Tk" in "Tk/TCL"), and I
have no objection if people want to build such a thing.


> it's very difficult to build a useful general-purpose GUI on
> top of gnuplot (think xgfe)

I've long wanted to build (probably using Perl/Tk) a "movie gnuplot":
a GUI to make it easier to generate sequences of gnuplot commands which
iterate through the frames of a movie.  Right now I use a custom-written
Perl program to generate the gnuplot script for each movie, which is
++clumsy.

ciao,

-- 
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jt...@ae...>
   School of Mathematics, U of Southampton, England
   "Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
    powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
                                      -- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam