[Gnuplot-info] How to directly sort data and plot

[Jian-Ming Z. <jm...@gm...>]

Hi,

I have a data file which contains several columns. The data in the
file are not sorted. I want to sort the data of a column (for example,
column 3) and plot the data. I use UNIX command sort to sort the data
and then use gnuplot to plot the data.

$ sort -k3nr datafile > sortfile     # sort column 3 in decreasing order
gnuplot> plot 'sortfile' u 3 w linespoints     # plot sorted values of
column 3 at x = 0, 1, 2, …

Is it possible to directly sort the data and plot the results in
gnuplot? If yes, how to do it?

Thanks