Re: multiple plot lines with plot '-'

[Allin C. <cot...@wf...>]

On Wed, 16 May 2012, Daniel J Sebald wrote:

> On 05/16/2012 11:50 AM, Allin Cottrell wrote:
>> On Wed, 16 May 2012, Daniel J Sebald wrote:
>> 
>>> Perhaps there should be a mode switch, "use the same data" or "don't
>>> reread". But I'm not sure how crucial that is.
>> 
>> Just a notion, but what if gnuplot's syntax permitted defining a matrix
>> (either "inline" with some nice, simple syntax or by reading from a
>> file), and you could then say something like
>> 
>> plot matrix "foo" using ...
>> 
>> as many times as you wanted, using whichever columns?
>
> Well, that's a paradigm change as far as programming because the whole plot 
> command would need to be processed to figure out what columns are required 
> for _all_ plots not just the current one.

The way I'm thinking about this, no look-ahead is needed. All 
gnuplot has to do is store the given matrix (all of it), then draw 
on it as and when specified.

I'm mooting this as an extension of the way that gnuplot can 
currently store scalars (and complex numbers) for future use, 
without having any idea at the time what they'll be used for. This 
strikes me as a lot more straightforward than messing with the
way datafiles and stdin currently work.

Allin Cottrell