Re: [Gnuplot-info] missing data = empty string ?

[Ethan A M. <eam...@gm...>]

On Sunday, 20 October 2013 09:41:50 PM Theo wrote:
> unfortunately not...
> 
> help says:
> set datafile separator {"<char>" | whitespace}
> 
> default is whitespace
> isn't that either \s or \t ?
> 
> Anyway,
> set datafile separator "\t"
> does not help...

That's odd. It should.

After saying "set datafile separator '\t'" an empty column should
nevertheless be recognized as a column.  So values in column 4
should never bleed into column 3 as you described originally.

As to whether an empty column is treated as zero or missing or 
bad, I'm afraid that depends on the gnuplot version.

Current gnuplot (4.6.4 and 4.7) treat empty columns as missing data.
Earlier versions treated it as "bad" if you tried to plot it but 
(I think) properly ignored it if the columns was not mentioned in 
the using spec.

	Ethan