error-prone interpretation of zero-prefixed numbers as octal

[Andreas B. <abr...@mp...>]

Hi gnuplot-beta members,

some time ago we came across a strange behavior of gnuplot, which we 
suspected to be a bug. After I failed in contacting the gnuplot-bugs 
mailing list I had a private communication with Hans-Bernhard Bröker 
(the owner of the gnuplot-bugs mailing list), who told me that it is 
actually not a bug.

But since this behavior can cause wrong plots and lead to really 
annoying and time consuming debugging sessions, I want to start a 
discussion about it:

When we used "every" in a plot-file, it did not produce the result we 
expected. "every" seamed to make a difference between the data blocks 
'24' and '024':

"data.dat" ev :::024::024 u 1:3 title '1' w l
"data.dat" ev :::24::24 u 1:3 title '2' w l

(Since it is no bug, it can be produced with every version.)
I am sure, examples can be found, where this behavior causes even worse 
results. ;-)

 From the communication with H.B. Bröker I know that this is because 
gnuplot interprets zero-prefixed numbers as octal. This may be obvious 
for C-programmers, but not necessary for non C-programmers.
(For example in fortran it is quite common to output normal numbers 
zero-prefixed.)
Therefore I want to suggest the introduction of another prefix for octal 
numbers (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octal#In_computers for 
examples), which is less error-prone.

Alternatively, or as a quick fix, it could be warned when zero-prefixed 
numbers are used.

I curious about your opinions.

( Anyway, gnuplot is a very useful tool ;-) Thanks for it. )

Greetings from Cologne
Andreas Breslau